Inspiration

Half past four in the afternoon and it's already dark. Scottish winter - but I've lit a candle and I'm actually enjoying the cosyness, even though it's just started to rain outside as well.

This morning started so beautifully. A perfect frosty morning. Clear skies and sunshine! My favourite! So I took a walk in the countryside. To my delight, God spoke to me really profoundly while I was out. Amongst other things, He spoke to me about the perfect timing of nature. The way that God makes things happen exactly when He means to. The planned time for the leaves to begin to fall off trees, for bulbs to sprout in spring; the perfect spin of the Earth on its axis and its orbit round the Sun, the cause of our seasons. God cares about this world but more than that, He cares about the people on it, which got me thinking. Surely if the timing of nature is perfect, God's plan for the timing of events in the course of my life happen exactly when God wants them too? He knows what is best for me, I fervently believe that, but at times I try and speed things up or hold off on certain aspects as if I know better. We tend to set our own agenda in life and don't leave room for God's divine timing to have it's way. It can be hard to accept but the belief that God's plans are only for my prosperity and never to cause grief help me as I try to give more of my life to God.

I hadn't actually planned on writing any of that but it's out now so I'm going with it. I actually wanted to share a recent discovery of the life and work of Jan Wanggaard. I read about him over, what turned out to be, a very enjoyable lunch hour. Once the windsurfing World Champion, he now works as a freelance artist and is currently working on a scale reproduction of the Solar System.

On top of Saturn

He has had to reduce the distances to a scale of 200 million to one in order to represent the dimensions of the planets correctly (the Sun is going to be a sphere of 7m in diameter and saturn weighing 1600lbs(!) had to be transported to the nearby beach by helicopter).  The work of art appears in his documentary Panta Rei (Everything Flows), which I'd love to get my hands on. Jan built his own house in the fishing village of Reine, in the Norwegian Lofoten Islands north of the Arctic Circle. A couple of years ago he built a hut in a remote valley, which, to get to, he must hike over mountains for 3 hours (and that's only to the closest place where boats can land!).

Check out more of his work on his website, which I've added to my link list at the bottom of the page.