Sabbath at Portland Light Head

Fort Williams, Cape Elizabeth, Maine

 After Sabbath afternoon presentation on Evolution / Intelligent Design, I took a few of the youth out to Cape Elizabeth to walk around Fort Williams Park and get these guys to not sleep. 

Reflection

The tide was lower so we saw the residual water collected at the base, and you can see the Lighthouse reflection in it. The water's reflection acts as a natural polarizing filter, which results in the richer colors in the pool's reflected image. I was still in church clothes so I couldn't crawl down there. It was a breezy 52°F but cloudless afternoon. It was going to get colder as the sun was setting.

Portland Head Light

As the sun set, the rays with longer wavelengths (reds, oranges and yellows) have less scatter (this is known as refraction) than shorter wavelength light (blues, purples), as the atmosphere acts as a prism, leaving the light a warm orange-yellow glow at sunset, which caught the top end of the Lighthouse in the above picture.

The Three Youths

The guys with me were bundled up for the (slightly) windy weather which dropped the temperature even more. Early that morning for Sabbath School, we had gone over the book Steps to Christ, chapter by chapter, and applying each step to specific teenage issues. While these teenagers aren't caught up in harmful habits, we still reviewed that we often look for even wholesome things to give satisfaction in our lives, but because of our separation from God because of sin, nothing will be satisfying (that's a review of Sabbath School, come next Sabbath and we'll continue) and then we introduced the Sinner's Need for Christ. We're only on Chapter 2. It hasn't sunken in for these guys yet (but repetition deepens the impression and we will review it again next week) as you could tell from the conversations walking around the grounds. I'll be a little more deliberate next time. And it's a needed review for me, too, since there is never such a thing as "too much" conversion.

Annie C. Maguire

Looking south of the Lighthouse is this sign of the probably one of the best Christmas presents ever, seeing as no one lost their life that night. If you were too lazy rushed to hit the jump, here's a little history of the sign in the photo above:

On Christmas Eve, 1886, the British bark Annie C. Maguire ran ashore on the rocks at Portland Head. The Strouts got a line to the vessel and helped all aboard, including the captain's wife, make it safely to shore.

On New Year's Day 1887, a storm destroyed the ship after everything of value had been removed. You can still see the rock near the lighthouse with the painted inscription: "Annie C. Maguire, shipwrecked here, Christmas Eve 1886."

We got kicked out of the park as it closes at sundown. We closed Sabbath right outside the gate and drove back home for hanging out and talking, a difficult endeavor for teenage boys. But remember, baby steps.