In Tennessee we have Lookout Mountain where you can see seven states. In Israel, they have where you can see Mount Hermon, Beit She’Arim, the Kishon River, Judea – Samaria, Jerusalem, Ramat Hashofet, Ein Masmofet, Kibbutz Dalia, Tel Aviv and Netanya.
Standing on top of the Muhraka Monastery on the highest peak of the Carmel Mountains you can see a forest on one side and dirt and sand roads on the other.
Alaska... “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity” ― John Muir, Our National Parks
This is Gold Mine Creek… In 1880, Joe Juneau and Richard Harris found large pieces of quartz mixed with gold in this very same waterway. Juneau later created the Treadwell Mine which became the largest gold mine in the world.
Read MoreThe mountains in Alaska jut from the earth sharply and are kissed by the crisp cold air as the warmer air below makes its way up. Snow from the top then mixes with the warmer air on its trickle down and creates even more fog, preventing you from seeing the peeks.
Naturalist and father of our National Parks once stated, John Muir stated, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” No truer words were spoken as he was considered a “Wilderness Prophet,” which was his nickname. Muir was one of the true explorers of Alaska in search of beauty, which he became engulfed in.
Not everyone lives to the beat of the same drum. Of course, that is what makes life interesting for me to sometimes view from the outside looking in.
Personally, I enjoy a house that has a yard to mow, but then again I find it relaxing to mow with my headphones on. Others like to live where there is no need to mow, surrounded by nature at its best, which I understand.
Dwight Teagarden, who is holding the newborn, is from Murfreesboro, TN. He grew up here and he even went to Bellwood Christian Academy back when they had a full blown high school.
Teagarden was so excited to tell me about his new son. While it is true that he is a tad bit on the older side for a new child at age 57, you would never know by talking to him. He was all smiles, which is a very positive thing in this world of children growing up without a father in their life. However, I think his age makes him better understand the importance of a father being in a child's life.
So many studies show how important a father is or can be - which is eye opening if you have never dove into the subject.
A 2011 article in Psychology Today by Dr. Ditta M. Oliker touched base on the father and sometimes fatherless issue. One of the topics she brought up in her studies was that pre-1970, research on families typically left out the father or downplayed his importance. Of course, that led to reporting that was not representative of how powerful a father can or should be in the lives of his children. It also diminished the role of fathers greatly.
While research in the 1950’s to 1970’s nearly ignored the father, the dads were involved in a major way compared to families today.
In 1960 only 10% of children were raised without a father in the household. Today, that number is vastly different with 40% of homes lacking a live-in father. In 1950 there were 393 thousand divorced adults in America. In 2008, that number climbed to 8.4 million, according to the US National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States and National Vital Statistics.
Dr. Oliker wrote, “There is no question that fathers do play an important part in their children's lives; that the majority of studies affirm that an involved father can play a crucial role particularly in the cognitive, behavioral and general health and well-being areas of a child's life; that having a positive male role model helps an adolescent boy develop positive gender-role characteristics; that adolescent girls are more likely to form positive opinions of men and are better able to relate to them when fathered by an involved father; that it is generally accepted, under most circumstances, a father's presence and involvement can be as crucial to a child's healthy development as is the mother's; and that experiencing validation of their importance in the general parenting literature has made fathers much more conscious of their value and, in turn, leads to their greater desire to be involved.”
A 2007 article by Julia Borisenko noted, “The absence of a father-figure is detrimental to child personality development. At the same time, fatherhood can be a factor of male personality development of the father.” What is interesting about the article from Borisenko is that she is a Social Psychology faculty Department member of Kemerovo State University in Russia. In other words, translations of fathering roles are universal.
A woman was once was known for her many radical ideas and thoughts on women’s rights once wrote, “Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.” While the views of Lydia Maria Francis Child in the 1800's may have been viewed as crazy for women at the time, today her views would probably be viewed as conservative.
The American Novelist from Massachusetts lived her life between 1802 and 1880. Child was against women being segregated to work by themselves and instead alongside men. She also hated slavery and spoke-out about the issue in her time on a regular basis. However, while she was pro women’s rights 100 percent of the time in her day, she was also pro father.
In closing, I have to say that I find it interesting that starting in the 1800’s a woman who was all about women’s rights totally values the role of a father in a child’s life. But today, women’s rights is often about forgetting the father, simply based on my observation of movements across the country. I am also stuck in my thoughts about the 1960’s, where the role of the father was left out of studies even though only 10% of households were without fathers in the home at the time. As I jump ahead to research in the 2000’s, I confirm that 40% of households in America are fatherless. So where did our thoughts as a whole society change between the 1800’s and 2000’s? Why did we move so far ahead and forget about fathers only to realize in the 2000’s that they are more important than originally thought?
The Costa Rica landscape is comparable to no other. Years ago earthquakes, flooding and volcanoes shaped the land to what you will see today when visiting.
Fast flowing rivers, beautiful waterfalls, active volcanoes, massive craters are all over the 19,730 square mile country that is filled with a relatively small population of about 4.8 million residents.
Some of the beaches have white sand while others are black mixed with speckles of white. Monkeys swing from tree to tree while iguana’s lounge around waiting for an unsuspecting bug to cross their path.
"All trails seem to lead to waterfalls, misty crater lakes or jungle-fringed, deserted beaches. Explored by horseback, foot or kayak, Costa Rica is a tropical choose-your-own-adventure land." -Lonely Planet