Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Reflections from Cape Town

Greetings from Cape Town

The weather in Cape Town has been unseasonably wet the last two days. You can walk around if you don’t mind getting a bit damp, but at least it’s cooler than the previous few days. The thermometer climbed into the low 90’s and today’s 70’s feels great – and the plants love it.

I took advantage of the down time to rummage through some of my photos and meditate a bit. I got up the other morning in time to take a sunrise picture over Devil’s Peak. You can see two of the local birds (cranes) at rest on the horizon.








The early sun reflecting off the glass in a downtown building.









As I looked around that morning I noticed the reflection of our building, and our flat, in a nearby building. I was struck with its similarity to structures I had seen many years ago in Chaco Canyon – the pueblos of the Anasazi.






As I continued to look around, the outline of Table Mountain and its cable car station appeared as a reflection in the windows of the building across from us. As I view the same scene today, the mountain is hidden by a layer of fog/cloud.

There’s something philosophical, perhaps theological, here: reality, reflected reality, and hidden reality.





Speaking of hidden, here’s today’s view across Table Bay; a bit of fog making navigation tricky.







While I’m in this introspective mood, I have a question for you. Did you vote in the primaries? This is a picture of the South African people queued up in 1994 to vote for the first time. It took four days to complete the voting because there were so many who wanted to vote. BTW, there were no incidents.

It is a privilege to vote. Don’t ever forget that. Betsy and I spent the better part of this morning with a gentleman who lived through many of the difficult days and years prior to that April 1994 event. He spoke about the role of the churches, the police, the government – incredibly emotional. I can only pray that the US government turns away from any similar, heavy-handed tactics.

Floyd

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