Our first full day in Cape Town we have good weather, which is not that common here this time of year. Where to go? Let's head for the open spaces, and one of the few places I know in which direction to head.
So we head south to Cape Point National Park. The route is beautiful as we travel through coastal villages that are suburbs of Cape Town. When we arrive at the park entrance, we are confused. It is a big gate, with a roundabout just behind it and no entrance building, ticket vendor or anything. I start to turn around, but the sign clearly says, Cape Point and points inside the fence. Just out of sight is the park entrance.
For a small fee we access thousands of hectares of open land. We stop at the information center, and see this wonderful tree.
We drive to the southern tip of the Cape and then make a very, very long climb up to the OLD lighthouse at the topmost point. Here's Brenda at the lighthouse base.
What you see behind her is the NEW lighthouse (1939 or so I think). Note the little path just off her left shoulder. "Leave no path unexplored" cazn be a motto that gets you in trouble. With some reluctance I convince Brenda to take the path less traveled.
There were some neat vistas on this path.
Eventually we reach "new" lighthouse which is many hundred feet BELOW the old original lighthouse. Herein is a lesson. The logical place to place a lighthouse, a "city set on a hill" so to speak, is the highest point, right. BUT, BUT, BUT the weather here is none to bright. The old light house at the high altitude was totally obscured by clouds a high percentage of the time. A "light under a bushel" so to speak.
Consequently a new lighthouse had to be built much lower on the mountain.
What can we learn?
So we head south to Cape Point National Park. The route is beautiful as we travel through coastal villages that are suburbs of Cape Town. When we arrive at the park entrance, we are confused. It is a big gate, with a roundabout just behind it and no entrance building, ticket vendor or anything. I start to turn around, but the sign clearly says, Cape Point and points inside the fence. Just out of sight is the park entrance.
For a small fee we access thousands of hectares of open land. We stop at the information center, and see this wonderful tree.
Eventually we reach "new" lighthouse which is many hundred feet BELOW the old original lighthouse. Herein is a lesson. The logical place to place a lighthouse, a "city set on a hill" so to speak, is the highest point, right. BUT, BUT, BUT the weather here is none to bright. The old light house at the high altitude was totally obscured by clouds a high percentage of the time. A "light under a bushel" so to speak.
Consequently a new lighthouse had to be built much lower on the mountain.
- Logic can mislead us without sufficient consideration of all factors
- Higher is not always better (whether salaries or lighthouses).
- A more humble light that works is more valuable than a loftier light that is obscured.
- Matt 5:16, ""Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
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