Stone Ivy

What an astonishing process has brought this image to your screen. Just think of the steps involved. From ivy to carved stone to an electronic array in my camera to the internet to your screen. Here it is in a little more detail:

Ivy carved in stone

• The ivy grew from an ivy seed at a time and place long lost in the past.
• Sunlight illuminated the ivy and some of the reflected rays entered the eyes of a stone carver, living in a different age than ours.
• The patterns of light in the mason's eyes allowed the neurons in his brain to interpret and comprehend the delicate shapes of the ivy stems, leaves and fruit.
• The mason's brain coordinated the movements of his hands holding chisel and mallet as he worked.
• A representation of the ivy was unmasked in the block of stone by the skillful mason.
• Sunlight illuminated the carved stone and some of the reflected rays entered the lens of my camera.
• The colours and intensities were recorded as patterns of data in a memory card.
• The patterns were stored again in the memory in my laptop.
• These same patterns were transmitted across the internet to you.
• The patterns of light were reconstructed on your screen.
• Some of the reconstructed light entered your eyes.
• The patterns of light in your eyes allowed the neurons in your brain to interpret and comprehend the delicate shapes of the ivy stems, leaves and fruit.

If this is not miracle layered upon miracle - then what is it?

Pictures and music

I was delighted to discover some really great cards by Hannah Dunnett. I bought several of them for friends and soon found the Dunnett's website where Ben and Hannah provide more information and sell their material online. Hannah is an artist, Ben is a musician.

Some time ago Donna and I visited the lovely old city of Bath, and we decided to have a coffee at St Michael's Without in Broad Street. And there we found a selection of Hannah's cards again.

I want to make you aware of Ben and Hannah's beautiful work because it deserves to be much more widely seen and heard. Not only is it all available to order and in a growing number of retail outlets, but Ben and Hannah have made everything available online, pictures and music too.

You will need to buy their products for the full quality, but you can also enjoy it for free. I predict that having tasted it, most people will end up buying prints or CDs.

Hannah's cards - Hannah paints stylised designs with words from the Bible in sweeping curves. She makes these available as greetings cards, high quality art prints, and posters. The picture above is a design called 'God of all Comfort'.

Because of the carefully chosen words these cards are not just beautiful in their own right, they also bear the stamp of a loving Creator. From the picture above we read, 'I will sustain you, I will give you rest, I will carry you, [I] will be with you, I call to you'. And there is much, much more. Words of great comfort from the One who is quick and ready to bring great comfort.

Ben's music - Ben is a music teacher and examiner. He writes some delightful melodies and is clearly a gifted pianist. If the worship albums and the children's album are anything to go by he's also very talented in laying down individual tracks to build up a full backing for songs.

You will find everything here from reflective, gentle melody to robust rhythms good for dancing, and great lyrics provided by Hannah.

St Michael's Without - I simply can't close this post without saying more about this lovely Anglican church in Bath. Everything about the place is delightful. The interior has been modified to make a quiet space for coffee, cakes, books and a comfortable place to sit. The website soon makes it clear that the people are delightful too.

They are evidently active in the local community in many ways. They seem to be conscious of the need for gentleness and peacefulness in everything. They are careful and deliberately slow in making changes trying to 'avoid the rush which undermines friendship'. They pray about everything in love.

If you are visiting Bath, try to make the time to drop in to spend a little while experiencing the peace and the fragrance of this lovely place and the people who make it what it is - a little piece of heaven right here on earth. Just like Hannah's pictures and Ben's music.

Questions: 

• Are there ways you can be a little piece of heaven for those you meet today?
• Might there be 'difficult' people in your life you could make an extra effort to bless?
• How does Hannah's artwork and Ben's music make you feel?
• Does it help you find the peace you need to become a blessing to others?

See also: 

• Ben and Hannah Dunnett
• Greetings cards - Ben and Hannah Dunnett
• Music - Ben and Hannah Dunnett
• Oneness and reconciliation - Journeys of heart and mind
• Opposite of envy - Journeys of heart and mind
• St Michael's Without

Day at sea

< Join the cruise and sail | Index | Dominican Republic >

Our first full day at sea took us further south and east. There was plenty to do and see, exploring the ship, an art auction, enjoying a restaurant meal, entertainment in the theatre, chatting with other passengers, and of course reading.

The ship headed east and south all last night and all of today, putting on the miles. The sea was quite choppy today, Atlantic weather rather than Caribbean weather.

We spent the day reading, chatting, learning our way around the ship, and investigating an art auction. I have no idea how much artwork was sold, but the display was busy as you can see in the photo.

We ended the day eating at the Aqua Restaurant this time. The menu is the same as the Venetian but the decor and lighting is more relaxed and pleasant. Like the Venetian it is a large space filling the ship's entire beam.

After eating we watched a show in the theatre, a tribute to the music of the 1970's and very well done. The theatre is surprisingly large, filling much of the front of the vessel, and it even has a rotating section in the middle.

Paul Scally, the Cruise Director, reminds us so much of Clive Urquhart from Kingdom Faith - his Luton accent and style of speaking are just the same! He doesn't look like Clive, but hearing him make announcements on the ship's public address system was uncanny!

< Join the cruise and sail | Index | Dominican Republic >

Recovering a portrait of da Vinci

Here's a great example of image recovery, a sketched self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci was discovered a couple of years ago, obscured when he reused the page as writing material.

The image has been recovered twice, once by professionals and then more recently (and much more quickly) by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna using freely downloadable software from the internet. You can read the story and see the results of her efforts on MIT's 'Technology Review'.

The self portrait shows Leonardo as a young man, the only other existing self-portrait is one he made when he was old (this is the image shown here).

It's fascinating how the text can be removed and at every point automatically replaced by an average of the surrounding area. That's what Amelia Carolina Sparavigna did using the packages she downloaded. She used The Gimp (image processing software) to superimpose the young face on the old face to check whether the eyes, nose and mouth showed the same relative spacings. They did! This helps to confirm that both portraits are of the same person - we may get wrinkles as we age but the proportions of our face remain the same.

Kudos to Amelia, but also to the science journalist who first noticed the presence of a portrait underlying da Vinci's text on bird flight.