Cloud-to-cloud Lightning
This is my first capture of a lightning bolt. I had just finished my shift at the pizza place where I worked and I was so excited about the lightning capture that I raced back to show it to my boss before he finished closing shop. Afterwards, I headed "below the hill" to the Vermillion airport (Vermillion is partially situated on a bluff overlooking the Missouri river valley) in order to attempt catching some more. I didn't realize how difficult that would prove to be. I snapped this photo using a Canon Powershot S2 IS with a 15 second exposure, facing southwest. It was around midnight, late in the summer of 2006 (August). The lamp in the distance marks the parking lot at Clay County park, just west of Vermillion, SD. The camera was precariously placed on the dashboard of my truck (you can see a slight ghost of windshield-wiper movement appearing on the left of the photograph). It may seem at first or second glance that the lightning is touching the power lines, but that is only an optical illusion. Notice that the bolt travels behind a few puffs of cloud before dispersing in the larger embankment. If the bolt had hit the power lines, it would have traveled in front of the smaller clouds. I moved to Illinois about a week after this photo was taken in order to get married and start a new life. This photo reminds me of that exciting transitional period when God's hand moved so prolifically through events it seemed almost possible to glimpse the Man behind the curtain.
Aaron
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I wonder, how can discernment ascertain the veritable right moment? Is it possibly subjective? Could the right moment be any moment? I guess the answer to that would be yes, which then alludes to the subjective I had questioned prior. For if there is any truth it would be in the here and now, and what we perceive is then the truth as we see it (subjectively speaking of course). You are fortunate to have taken this display of God's majesty, and it seems to me that God was celebrating your liberation! Nice Pic!
Good questions. My belief is, there is a time and a place for everything. As you say, if there is any truth, it would be in the here and now. To that I would reply, what we perceive is not always the whole truth. Discernment isn't merely subjective, because truth isn't subjective. Logical absolutes, for instance, are always true in all times and places, i.e., an object cannot logically be itself and not itself at the same time and in the same sense; something cannot bring itself into existence, etc. These logical absolutes, being absolutely true irrespective of time and place, transcend subjectivity and in themselves allude to an absolute mind beyond the world of phenomena. I believe this same absolute mind educates our conscience and discernment processes, here and now. As such, I believe it is absolutely possible to discern the "right moment" to act.