Sunset Serenade by Richard Newland on Capture Kern County

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Sunset Serenade

Every time you wake up and ask yourself, What good things am I going to do today?, remember that when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it.

Wayne Wong
commented 6 months ago

Richard, your shot is very well composed, and the foreground does a great job here. The sky is not too attention grabbing, and the effect is to stimulate some introspection, as you aptly describe. We also have to look to the future, and not dwell on the past, though we learn from it. We need to learn from our past that the future is where we are to concentrate on, so that God can remedy the errors we have made in the past by the actions we take in the future, which will, by grace, get us home where we belong, causing many others to get home safely along the way.

The implication of your description is that we are to do good, and we can do good, just not in our own power and wisdom...it is beyond our pay grade. But, amazingly, we ca do good, because our Creator designed us to, though we have a tragic ability to reject our destiny and go do things in our own understanding, with the tragic consequences that result, not only for ourselves, but for many others affected.

But one person can change everything. In my posts on Dave Donaldson and Convoy of Hope, I tried to communicate this point...when I see the misery and hopelessness shown on the big screen of people in disaster areas like Staten Island, it is very close to home. People there and in the east are cold and hungry, just like in the revolutionary days in Valley Forge.

My daughter has a friend in Staten Island who personally told of the situation, and it corroborated the impression I got on the screen. When hope was needed, and people of all walks of life found themselves in an extremely vulnerable situation, where was hope? Their homes were literally underwater. Children were plucked off rooftops. Nothing left but the clothes on their back, which could be wet and cold on top of that, wondering if their relatives were okay.

Can you just imagine the effect of Convoy of Hope trucks showing up? The cavalry has arrived, and they have been relieved!

This was all played out under the Statue of Liberty, the gateway to the USA, and the cold, huddling masses were not immigrants coming to America for a better future, but American citizens in our time!

When we realize we have shared in that Convoy of Hope truck bringing both food and clothing, but people to talk with and pray with, we should see that we have done good...very good, causing God to smile, for we have then demonstrated that we got His message!

Richard, perhaps you could go back and review the six posts I made on Convoy of Hope and soak it in....it all started when the Davis family, living in a small mobile home, decided to take in the Donaldson family, in Concord, CA after a drunk driver killed the father and injured the mom, leaving a bunch of small kids in the lurch. Dave grew up and came to Bakersfield, met the right people and got the ideas he needed, and went on to co-found Convoy of Hope! They have been in Japan, Ethiopia, Staten Island, Joplin, MO, and many other places....

Let it warm your heart...it certainly melted mine.
Wayne Wong
commented 6 months ago

Richard, that is a very perceptive description, and very right on. Remember that there were several standards for reckoning time in the Judean hills occupied by the Romans. Just as we have several calendars, such as fiscal year, tax year, civil year, etc. the day ended at sundown and began again.

It is a good thing we have only 24 hours in a day. We can only take so much, and would not do well outside of the diurnal cycle.