awe Archives - Keith Shields

Hubble Bubble

7,100 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, a star is blowing bubbles. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a picture of this giant gas discharge. When I consider the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars that He has set in their appropriate places, I must ask, “Why does God consider…

The Dance of the Planets

(Photo credit: Universe Today) I have continued to enjoy the movements of Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. This particular conjunction of planets has now inspired my imagination for several weeks. Each morning I look to the east around five or six am to see if it is clear enough to see this amazing display. The relative…

Tiny Cells and Large Planets

In the last week, two articles caught my attention and contributed to my sense of wonder. One article spoke of new microscope techniques for viewing very small chemical processes inliving cells. The other article was about images taken of very large objects: the planets and dwarf planets in our solar system. We live in an…

What is it made of?

As a curious person, I often ask the question, “What is that made of?” Today’s blog will take us on a journey as we ask this question about plastic. One of the simplest forms of plastic is polyethylene. The chemical formula for this molecule is (C2H4)nH2. The type of polyethylene varies with the value of…

Stars

I am feeling the need to take a trip to a place where I can see a large number of stars at once. Every once in a while I get this sense and I have learned to listen to this call of my spirit. I find I need to periodically make time for seeing the…

Flannery O’Connor on Mystery

“I don’t think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then ‘smile darkly and ignore the howls.’ Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you…

Cape Breton Island

My wife and I just returned from a week of vacation in Nova Scotia. We particularly enjoyed our time on Cape Breton Island traversing the Ceilidh trail and Cabot Trail. Nova Scotia is a proud land with a noble history. Scottish Highlanders, with their distinctive Scottish Gaelic language, were cleared out of the Highlands of…

Images

It occurred to me that my blog has been pretty serious lately. Perhaps it is time to inject a bit of fun and beauty. Here are a few images from downtown Vancouver. Click on the photos to enlarge. This picture says so much about Vancouver: condos, new construction, mountains, SkyTrain tracks, East Van Cross. Construction…