The Chief End of Man

 For most men are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever".

Henry David Thoreau explaining how he set out to know the meaning of life by stripping it to its barest essentials

It occurs to me that simple answer from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, must have been taught to every young boy and girl in New England at the time.  I started my teenage journey to find the answer to the same question by reading Walden over and over again.  I then went to college and majored in biology because it was the scientific study of life and must, I thought,  have some insight into what it all meant.  I discovered, by the end of my four years, that biology's simple answer was that it was a giant mechanistic process driven by mutation and natural selection, that had no purpose and no meaning.  Somehow that left too much unaddressed, or dismissed too much too easily.  By the time I was in my mid twenties, I had given up.  I concluded that there was no way to know and that life was just a long road down which we carried heavy burdens.  It was at that point that, through various anguishing experiences and revelations, not to be enumerated here, the Spirit of God began to reveal himself to me.  I began to believe there was something beyond the material world, but I knew nothing about it and went in search of answers in religion.  I went to the library which was, at the time, across the street from my house and read every book there on every religion I could find books on.  None of them quite matched the Spirit of revelation I was experiencing, until I picked up the Bible and began to read the four gospels.  I came to realize that the Spirit I felt directing me and the one named Jesus speaking in the gospels were one and the same.So, from there, I became and remain a Christian.  And I do believe that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Enjoying him forever implies eternal life, and glorifying God means living your life by faith in what is righteous and living without fear because you believe there is a God who cares for you.  To live a life as if you are in the presence of an all powerful and perfect God glorifies him not just to other people but to a myriad of beings we know nothing about. 

Summer Rain

 It has been hot and muggy the last week in true August fashion with a thunderstorm at the end of the day.  I sat and watched the black clouds swirling until the pouring rain forced me inside.

May 22, 2022

I have been a week alone except for our German Shepherd Boris.  Pam went with Paige to see Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  They are flying back tonight.  I will pick them up at the airport at about 1:00 am.  I talked to the neighbors twice but only because Boris ran over to play with their dog.  I worked every day except the weekends.  We had some good long dog walks, I watered the garden  every day and did some work on Papa's old room.  The last time Pam went away without me, I had Papa to take care of, now it's just Boris, who generally is not much trouble other than he has to be with me no matter what I am doing.  This is Memorial Day weekend and after a cool week, the weather is at its best: cool air, warm sunshine, blue sky, and green leaves.  

Fallen Forest

 I am in the habit of following a trail through the little stretch of woods behind our house to the soccer field on Pine streets.  It is little more than a quarter mile and there has always been a rudely marked trail cut by the keepers of the town's conservation land.  But this last Fall a windstorm swept through the forest and uprooted dozens of tall oaks and pines, until the path that was there is now so obscured by tangled branches and fallen trees that it is almost impassable.  My dog and I have found a way through though, he scurrying under the logs and I leaping up onto them and down the others side.

They are in the majority oak trees, probably about 50 to 75 years old.  Each one, when it falls, leaves an uprooted root system and a pit filled with water so that there are dozens of tiny ponds now in these woods which my dog loves to drink from and splash in and, which I dread, will be harbors for clouds of mosquitoes once the weather warms enough.  The soil is sand, stones and clay and is poorly drained.  I think there is a limit to the height that trees can grow here, although some still stand, even bigger than those which have fallen.