I had an interesting conversation with John MacMurray after he spoke at the Story09 conference last week.

With him being a nature photographer and theologian I thought I'd ask him his take on the death of nature, and why we still seem to find it beautiful on some level.

My personal belief is that there was no death in the Garden of Eden. It was perfect in every way. Animals didn't eat each other, plants didn't die and there were no seasons with temperatures making it difficult for humans to survive.

Mr. MacMurray doesn't necessarily share this belief, but was kind enough to engage me in the conversation about the death of natural elements like trees, and how we can still find beauty in them since they are inherently beautiful works or art from a loving Creator.

I enjoyed the conversation. Over the next few days I had time to ponder the fact that it's typically nature that remains beautiful in death and not things we make ourselves.

Case-in-point: Websites.

I love looking at photographs of snow, dead trees lying in forests, moss and algae eating away at things and the lines left in rock from the eroding effects of water. But there is NOTHING beautiful about a bad website.

Why? According to John, it wasn't inherently beautiful to begin with.

Don't get me wrong, humans can create beautiful works of art. But everything man creates is not beautiful just for the sake of it's creation.

I guess that's why our website is a constant work in progress...

Guido (as I call him) is a male Cardinal that likes to hang out in the trees outside my window at work.

For the past few months I've been taking the camera to work but until now most of the pictures were not worth posting. It has either been too dark outside (gloomy) or they have been too far away with numerous branches between them and me.

But this one looked good enough to put out there. A little Photoshop work to make the background black and white and we're good to go.

I learned something from Guido and his friends the other day:

You always have to be on the lookout for danger.

Now most birds are skittish around humans, but I'm talking hawks - BIG hawks. The other day one of Guido's not-so-fortunate friends became lunch for the hawk. Not a pretty picture and yet this is the sad reality about the world in which we live.

Sin...

There are really mean people in the world - and those are just the ones we run into. Throw in Satan and his minions and the hawk starts to look pretty tame.

Stay strong Guido and always be on guard!