The Afternoon of Life

(I wrote this blog three weeks ago after we were back in Durban from our safari at Kruger Park...before I could post it my computer got a virus (sigh...first time in 20 years to get a computer virus).  I wanted to "wrap up" our trip, and this seems to do a good job, so I'm going to go ahead and post it with an apology for the delay. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Romans 1:20   “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” I stared at the stars this morning as we left the house shortly after 5:00 a.m.   Their brightness was incredible…it seemed I could reach out and touch them.   As a very chilly wind blew around us in our open-air vehicle, I watched the sun rise over the eastern side of South Africa.   I had a Monday like I’d never had in my life.   I don’t often see birds t

  How do I write about an automobile accident in which two cars are destroyed, but their six passengers all walk away?   Do I write about the decisions of the day that put us in that moment where the two cars met?   I chose to look for sunglasses after we stopped for lunch…delaying our leaving by about five minutes.   If I’d not bought the sunglasses, we would not have been in that place at that time.   We had a GPS with us and we made a wrong turn, but we had the sound down and didn’t hear her say “Recalculating”…a warning that we’d done something wrong.   So we missed a turn just ten short minutes before that moment…a turn that would have kept us from being in that place at that time.   But maybe the strangest decision is that we drove into a wildfire!    We saw it…we recognized that it was bigger than most of the fires we usually see here alongside the road.   I knew it was different enough that I actually photographed our approach, taking three pictures before we entered th