Articles

I started writing this on the Friday of the May long weekend. The wildfire smoke from northern Alberta was still reducing the visibility in Calgary, but I couldn’t smell it that morning. It wasn’t thick and dark like it was a couple of days earlier. On a clear day, I can see our 40 statutory miles (SM) visibility marker, the Rocky Mountains, but on that morning, the visibility was 5 SM. Weather observations are generally made in miles (for visibility) and feet (for cloud height) rather than metric. Visibility of 6 SM or less means I have to enter an obstruction to visibility in my observations (OBS) as well as put it in the weather duration in the Human Weather Observing System (HWOS). If the visibility drops below 3 SM, I have to send an extra OBS called a SPECI. The regular hourly OBS are called METARs. I called the obstruction, haze, that morning because I didn’t smell smoke.

As Christians, we understand that people from earliest times have made their living from farming. Cain and Abel, for example, had crops and herds. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had huge flocks of sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys and camels. Such flocks needed large areas of pasture for grazing. Also in Isaiah 28: 24-25 we read about farmers sowing crops of dill, cumin, barley and wheat. These farmers ploughed and sowed seeds. Nobody suggested that they should leave nature undisturbed. Farmers in New Testament times also ploughed the land and sowed seed. Agriculture has always been regarded as a good thing. At the present time however, agriculture has become somewhat controversial.

In past ages, Christian faith had a large impact on society. This faith determined the laws, the festivals/holidays, attitudes to family and to the environment. Of course, none of these customs and values perfectly reflected biblical norms, but that was at least the hope. More recently the pervasive belief system of society has turned from God to evolution. This about face has changed society’s values and hopes. Not least of these changes has been what society considers important to teach children. Soon we discover that evolution has become the foundation on which most curricula are based. This is the elephant in the (class) room. Attitudes in the public square, and attitudes in education, are based on a tacit acceptance of evolution, but nobody bothers to mention it.

This spring, as is their custom, Creation Science Association of Alberta sponsored a book and information booth at Alberta Home Educators’ conference in Red Deer. There are always many details to consider when planning for such a booth. The present inventory of resources must be assessed and books and DVDs ordered to top up the stock. Are there new titles which could be considered? These must be ordered as well. Among new publications this year were new curriculum texts, one available from AiG and one from CMI.

The recent death of Dr. John Morris of ICR brings to mind the occasion when he collaborated with Rev. Edward Crawford of Edmonton to travel to Mount Ararat.

On a stormy night at the end of February, 1976 Edward Crawford and more than three thousand other Edmontonians crowded into Jubilee Auditorium to hear John Morris, Field Director of the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego. Morris’ update on the status of expeditions to Mount Ararat included a number of slides. Mr. Crawford however saw something that others missed. He saw an inscription on a boulder on Mount Ararat. He recognized some of the characters as ancient proto-Sumerian. What was the story behind these writings? He wondered how messages came to be in such an inhospitable part of the world.