A Raft

[Disclaimer for Rachel, should she end up reading this: He's all yours, once I forget that I've read this book. And you're more than welcome to beat me down if I've read a moral into something that had no moral value at all. Just sayin'.]

I am in love with another captain of the guard.

Due to the wonderfulness that is fall break, my homework and required reading has gathered the most minute amount of dust possible as I spent my evenings, or what was left of my evenings after work took its toll, reading a book. Not to plug Terry Pratchett or anything, but I adore the Discworld and its characters, most of all Death, the anthropomorphic personification of, well, death, and Sam Vimes, captain of the Night Watch. I love Death for his weird humanity and I love Vimes just because. Maybe because I'm a sucker for a guy in uniform, maybe because he's a cynic or maybe just because he's adorable to me in a million ways I can't precisely explain. I love to dive into stuff like this, just escape from everything in a way that's more mentally stimulating than TV but a lot less mentally strenuous than the problem sets that I should probably be doing this very instant. And the Disc is quirky and amusing, but it's got a soul, somewhere in there, and morality and odd physics-y magic and superb characters. I listen to Vimes' optimistic cynicism and I smile and know that the lesson is hidden somewhere deep and if it had been said out loud, it would have been mocked. And so I love it.

But it's dangerous at the same time. Reading and made-up worlds are not safe grounds for my brain to live in. I could almost be there, running with the watch to the palace or climbing deeper into the depths of the Library with the Librarian. And it makes me think and that is a dangerous pastime as well. It's much safer to immerse myself in whatever subtlety is involved in whatever weird math I'm supposed to understand to finish my E&M homework than to let my mind swim unsupervised in the ocean that is creative, fantastic thought. I can't muse on the nature of humanity any more safely than I can spend hours imagining a castle far away surrounded by distant blue mountains and a clear river. My heart's much too invested in either topic and the brain goes astray when the heart takes the wheel.

Oh, but should it be that way? Should I have to limit my dreaming because eventually it'll take me places I don't want to go? I know it's like flying-- there's always that risk that you'll come crashing back down to the earth. But I'm not Icarus, I'm not dumb. I know my limits and I know when the wax will start to melt. At the same time, my limits are so low to the ground that I feel like it's not even worth the effort to take off at all. And then the familiar cycle of accusations come around again, mostly directed at the ceiling. Why would I even have the ability to think and to dream like this if I wasn't allowed to use it to its full potential? Why give me a mind that can think like this and visualize and imagine if that's the worst thing I can do? And believe me, it's not a good thing for me to be too romantic. It's much worse than having my head in the clouds. It's more like building ice cream castles in the air and then insisting that I be allowed to live in them. It's not safe. But building the castles is such a gift. Maybe I'm supposed to use it for something else? Oh, what else? What am I supposed to do with my life?

Man, two years ago I had it figured out. Four years of undergrad (and I could totally take this physics major on) and then a couple of years of grad school and doctorate work and then I'd have a PhD in astrophysics and I'd be doing research and life would be grand. It'd be hard, sure, but everything in life is hard, you just have to try harder and you'll win. Follow your dreams, people. You just have to be determined.

Can I just say that those are all lies? I mean, not the 'everything in life is hard' bit, I'm sure that's good across the board, but you can't do whatever you want. Or maybe you can do what you want, but you definitely can't do what you thought you wanted. And so here I sit, a couple of classes away from a degree that I honestly have no intention of using but was so sure was right for me and I have no clue what I'm going to do with my life. I've had this awkward and uncomfortable conversation with a lot of people recently because I keep on meeting new people and everyone wants to know what your major is and the most natural response to physics, after a sympathetic groan, is 'What are you going to do with that?' Me, I'm going to frame it up as exhibit A for proof of the stubbornness of my pride and then move on. But to what? There's so much you can do through the church. It's not all being a pastor or a chaplain, there's tons of options out there. See, when God calls you, He doesn't send down a nice little post-it with a profession and a list of goals and He doesn't defend Himself or try to convince you to come, He just says Follow Me. I mean, what are you supposed to say to that? 'No, I can't speak well.' 'But I am just a child.' 'You can't mean me, Lord.' 'But how do I know it's really You? How do I know that this isn't some cosmic joke or twist of fate or weird chemical imbalance that causes me to think that there's really a higher power out there that gives an expletive about what I'm doing? How do I know?'

I mean, it's almost painful, talking about this call stuff. I guess I invite it, because I tell people I'm going to Dallas, but I don't explain why and of course they ask and then I have to explain that it's a conference for young people interested in ministry in the United Methodist church and that's met with a much different response than physics is. There's the 'Oh, that's wonderful!' or the judging silence where people reevaluate me and decide if they really want to be around me anymore or the surprise. That's my favorite, the surprise. I guess I look and sound like a God-hater because I'm a thinker. And it legitimately breaks my heart when I have to tell a little kid who came to a planetarium show and asks me how the planets were created that they were formed out of a protoplanetary disk when the Sun was very young because it can rock your little world when you find out that the universe didn't pop into existence fully formed, but I can't lie. You can't sit back and say we don't know when we do and say it's God when we can see a cause. I don't like the god of the gaps. That's not who I plan on serving. Now, I know that in the Planck time at the beginning of the universe, the laws of physics that we have right now can't explain what's going on, but I'm not going to say that that's God because one day people might get it, God might let us in on a couple of things and we'd understand how awesome He is by what He's made, but that doesn't mean that God is the answer to the question today. And He's bigger than our science, you know? Happy International Year of Astronomy- it's the 400th anniversary of the first time that Galileo turned his telescope to the sky and started to see things that caused a verifiable uproar. But the thing is, he needn't have. Caused an uproar, I mean. If God's existence is called into question by a couple of rocks orbiting a bunch of gas super far away, maybe He's too small. And maybe we'll forever have to be rethinking Him because I don't think we can understand Him. I mean, He's not a superhuman, He's not some mirror for us to reflect the best parts of us onto. He's God. He's holy. He's set apart. He is apart. I know that, for a fact. But if He's loving and He made us all to be loving, where did we go so very wrong?

But that wasn't the original point. The original point was Sam Vimes. Sam Vimes, who claims the city for his own and attempts to impose some order on the chaos and tries wonderfully hard at being a hero despite his insistence that he's not hero material. And maybe he's not, you know, maybe he's just a literary vessel for the idea that whenever the common good man tries to save the day chance and a little messed up dragon must come and save it for him. But he has such faith in good, such idealism that is protected by the cynicism, that you can't help but hope that he's right at the end of the day, that the good in people and in the world will really float on the sea of evil and not be consumed.

And I like that.

Falling

The nature in Chapel Hill wishes us a happy fall. It's been freezing some mornings, but the trees are pretty, when the sun decides to show his face. And of course you know it's only this cold because we don't have a football game this weekend. We'll have a heat wave come Thursday. But for now, the cold that tends to seep into your bones, only banished by hot coffee and warm blankets makes me want to write.

I'm a sucker for fall, I'll admit it. I fall back in love with the world in this season. I live in the summer, but I love in the fall. That's probably what stirs up what is most likely an unfortunate desire. I want to tell stories again as the leaves change. I want to gather around a camp fire and let the ghosts that hide in my mind run free. I want to sit under a tree and watch her leaves fall as my pencil records the stories in my head. I want to give voice to the wind and life to the characters waiting in the wings. I want to be poetic, sarcastic, creative, effective, amusing, intelligent, true. I have a story that I think should be told, because it's too good to be sacrificed to the whims of my inhibitions. I have a story that I know should be told, that's been told thousands of times and hopefully will be told thousands more. And there's so much else to distract a person!

There's my religious studies class, for example, Intro to the Hebrew Bible. Did I mention that my professor, who has spent the entire semester so far convincing us that every word of the Bible cannot be historically accurate and who references Harry Potter at least once a week, is an ordained Baptist minister? Did I also mention how much hope this gives me? I mean, he said, "I'm a Baptist," not, 'I was a Baptist but now I've seen the light.' I just needed to know that it's possible to sit in light of all of these difficult issues that intense study of the bible brings up and still have a faith. It gives me hope.

Or how about Carolina basketball? Late Night this year was pretty expletively fun, I must say. It's about that time. Time for me to try to hide the fact that I adore Carolina basketball montages and their sappy music and time for me to attempt to once again keep my sports-related temper on the DL (which is going a lot better during football-- I haven't thrown my hat once). Also, I had a friend who Patrick Moody said hey to after Late Night. And I looked up at the stars as I walked up from the Dean Dome with a couple of friends and I gloried in the night and wondered what I had done to be happy again.

There's fun times with Christine and Pam, there's an awesome, awesome Birthday, there's Wesley lunch on Mondays, there's SAI (and then some more SAI and then after that I might have some more SAI), there's House, there's band, there's football, there's the planetarium and laser shows and observing next Saturday night at Jordan Lake you should totally come it'll be tons of fun and hopefully not super super cold, there's Caribou coffee and classes. All these wonderfully positive things in my world are such fantastic distractions from that fleeting urge in my soul to soar invisibly through time and the world I see to the places it will be from.

Oh, but then there's doubt. Then there's the deep questions, the Traveler Unknown that I wrestle with until the break of day, the One whose name I know is Love but I can't seem to make real. I don't understand, I don't see why when I call out through the desert, I only hear my echo. I don't see why when I seek, I don't find and I don't find and I don't find and I can't live my life like this. If I immerse myself in the night sky, will You be there? If I sing all those songs that twist my heart into pieces, that used to mean You were standing right beside me, will You be there? If I force myself back into Your words with a heart open to everything, will You find me here, speak to me, take my breath away? Will You tell me if I'm right? Will You fix me if I'm wrong? Will You love me and let me see it and show me how I can know that You really love every
one
else
too?
Will You show me how to fight for You and for justice and how to be righteous? Will You explain to me why You saved me? Will You come back to me? Will You bring me back to You? Because I've got to know if this is real, or I've got to at least find the faith to be able to live it until I know it's real. God, Lord, I've wanted to shout with joy for such a long time. Do my chains fly off, too?



Life is a tragedy full of joy.
Bernard Malamud

A Little Bit of Physics

One of the things we physics students are told to do when coming up with an equation to describe a certain physical situation is to test the equation and see how it behaves at the limits, as the independent variable goes to infinity or to zero. Some things blow up- they get infinitely big at infinity or at zero and that's apparently unacceptable in most cases. Some don't behave the way you want them to- if the strength of an electric field goes to infinity at an infinite distance away, there's a small problem.



Now I'm not saying you should, I'm saying you could apply the same kind of idea to theories about God (sometimes called theology). Say that God is constant, good, over all ranges of human suffering. It works pretty well for everyday life, given certain constraints like suffering is here to help form us and we can't know the will of God and His plans are better than our plans. At zero, though, it doesn't make any sense, given the constraints just mentioned. If we are formed by suffering, and being formed into a stronger human being is good, how can God be good if good isn't happening? Maybe that's why there's never a lack of pain in the world. But then we head over towards infinity and though I don't pretend to know what infinite suffering is like, I can see large amounts of suffering and I can't say that God is good there. And if He is just a constant good, then that constant has to be large (infinitely large, in fact) for it to overcome infinite suffering.

Maybe it's the observational data that's wrong. I mean, the theory tells us that God is good, infinitely good, over the entire domain, zero to infinity. Perhaps the instruments are limited in their measurements. Maybe they break when pain gets too large. But then we just have to trust the theory.

And you know physicists. They're never happy unless they get to test (read: blow up)something. So that could be why I want so badly to see God, regardless of that pesky Old Testament consequence of death. Of course, we're completely forgetting the necessity of bravery on the part of the experimenter, a quality which the experimenter seems to lack. So we'll work on building better instruments and hope that one day the experimenter will have the courage to press the big red button and live. For once.

God Save the People

From Godspell, of course, but the original hymn lyrics, attributed at bottom.

When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they;
let them not pass like weeds away
Their heritage a sunless day
God save the people

Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, O Father,
that men shall toil for wrong?
No, say thy mountains; No, say thy skies;
man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
and songs be heard, instead of sighs,
God save the people!

When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people; thine they are,
thy children as thy angels fair;
from vice, oppression and despair,
God save the people!

Words: Ebenezer Elliott, 1850

Rings

I went to a debate this evening between Bart Ehrman, an agnostic religious studies professor here, and Dinesh D'Souza, an author who was presenting 'the' Christian perspective. The title of the was 'God and the Problem of Suffering.' I have to say, the agnostic clearly won. I liked his points better, he had better (and unanswered) questions and he seemed much more open. Ehrman doesn't believe in the God of the Bible, the one who intervenes so often in the Old and New Testaments. He said that he couldn't know if there was or wasn't some bigger power up there and while D'Souza said something about science proving the existence of a creator and made one of his few nice points by mentioning his idea of the 'hiddeness of God,' which has apparently increased since Adam and Eve, D'Souza never flat out said that there must be a God and that God must be the one talked about in the Bible. I hated that he didn't say that. I mean, I don't know how the God of today that doesn't stop genocides and earthquakes lines up with the God of the Old Testament who talks to people, brings Israel out of Egypt and heals the sick.

But at the same time all this debate was going on, this little story was waiting for me to read it:

http://news.aol.com/article/california-nasa-telescope-sees-giant/706628?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl1link3http://news.aol.com/article/california-nasa-telescope-sees-giant/706628

There is a giant ring around Saturn and it is glorious when viewed in the infrared. Now, I'm not saying that this proves that there is a God and I'm not saying that this somehow undermines the problem of suffering, because that's a big deal to us confined to this Earth with the people we're confined with, but doesn't that make you wonder? I mean, I can see galaxies and maps of the universe, but they're all just big numbers to me. I've stopped seeing them as huge and just started seeing them. But this... makes me small. Makes us small. A billion Earths would be needed to fill in the space inside that ring. A billion copies of our planet. One billion.


From JPL (NASA)

The point is, my friends, that we are tiny and we should be thanking God for every nonsensical second of our existences that He decides to care for us, because He doesn't have to. Does He answer prayer? Does He work in our lives? Did He step down out of His heavens to bring us to Him? I mean, I don't know, but I do know that the One who sees things on scales much bigger than this and can control it is not the Person I want against me. I am so glad that by His grace, He's for me.