To Everything there is a season and a time… There are all kinds of “seasons”, and in the last week or so we have experienced more than a few.  Above is a July morning sunrise on our Takapuna beach walk. A time for sunrises and a time for sunsets.    Another Takapuna sunrise this week. Photoadventure.co.nz photo An Auckland sunset A time for rain  July is winter season and a time for lots of rain, and there has been HEAPS this week.  But with lots of rain comes lots of rainbows, heaps of them this week too!   And lots of rain keeps NZ green and beautiful and colorful. Some mornings there are rainbows everywhere... Milford beach web photo We assume rainbows have been around ever since there has been rain. With the centuries of symbolism that man has attached to rainbows, we like best the one that the Lord attached when He declared it as a token of His covenant with Noah.  And on incredibly rainy da...

Liberty The USA declared independence 242 years ago, and with every Fourth of July we remember how grateful we are for our nation’s liberty.    We have seen first-hand living outside of the U.S. how grateful much of the rest of the free world is for, and depends upon, the “land of liberty” with its laws and rights.  They don't always agree with our policies but feel that both freedom and liberty in the world are tied to our success or failure as a nation.  While freedom is the ability to do as one wills, liberty takes into account the rights of all involved. "Millions of people, in ancient and modern times, have given their lives for liberty. The defense of liberty has been able to incite man’s strongest emotions—feelings of intense pain, feelings of great joy. But few people actually understand the true meaning of the word “liberty.”   Charles Didier July 1986 One definition of liberty describes it as “the responsible use of freedom...