This evening I’m away from home on business.
It was 5:00am when I left the house this morning and I’ve been inside the car and various offices for the last 15 hours. Years of experience have taught me that the best way to get a good night’s sleep in these strange circumstances is to take in some air by going for a walk.
This evening’s location is Farnham in Surrey. I’ve been here many times before, too many to count. I like it here, it’s a nice place with parks and places to stroll.
After marvelling at the antics of a bunch of young men trying to catch crayfish in the river I headed out of town, past the train station and out of town on Waverley Lane. I was heading east and my attention was taken with the architecture. This area of town contains the type of English housing that is every stereotype of the type of houses we English are supposed to live in. Unfortunately most of us are never going to be able to afford a flat in one of these house let alone the whole house.
Eventually it was time to turn around and head back for something to eat. It was time to head west. My attention was no longer taken by architecture, my gaze was fixed on the majesty and beauty above. The sun was starting to set and the sky had become a picture of yellow, orange, gold, cadmium, copper, brass, pink, purple, scarlet, russet and cerise all set of with a wash of sky-blue.
I watched and walked as a jet crossed the scene, it’s trails illuminated.
It was then that a thought came: "When a man is tired of a sunset, he is tired of life." For those of you who haven’t already realised it’s mostly a quotation from Samuel Johnson who said: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life".
If you look through my Flickr photos you’ll find numerous sunsets. I love taking pictures of the sun’s descendence.
Sunsets are fabulous, each one is marvellously unique in its intricacy.
Sunsets mark the end of one thing and the start of another. It’s interesting to note that in a few places in the Bible it was at sunset that people bought sick people to Jesus. This has a similar significance, people come at sunset at the end of the Sabbath because sunset marks the end of the day. They wouldn’t come during the Sabbath because there were limitation on what they could do. I quite like the thought that Jesus was giving people hope through healing under a glorious sunset.
It’s a mystery why I haven’t written a post about the blessing of a sunset before. I listed as one of the things that I have that money can’t buy, but it never occurred to me that it hadn’t been a blessing in its own right. I’ve corrected that now.
Here’s a selection of sunsets I have enjoyed:
Graham Chastney 