Science Talk

I'm currently working on a keynote address (this sucker is going on my resume) for a conference for middle school girls, aimed at getting them interested in science, math and engineering. I don't want to be boring so I plan on lighting a few things on fire, maybe using a leaf blower and possibly adding in volcanoes somehow. And stars. I think there's going to be a couple of pictures of stars.

But I'm having trouble thinking of how to start out the thing, or where to go. I figured it might not be a terrible idea to talk about how I got interested in science, though I'm pretty sure it's a happenstance journey of odd complexity. I know that I got interested in the idea of space-time and the ways we could theoretically travel through it when I read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (who, by the way, is a liberal Christian and put some themes from her faith into her works, making me feel like my whole life is a set up). I love the idea of a tesseract as a method of transportation, though it's not a correct use of the word by any means (though they are really fun to watch as transformations). I had to google it to check and be sure, though, and I came across the wikipedia page for a wormhole and it just made me want to shut down. Seriously. Go look at it. My favorite mental cringe-inducing statement is:

Wormholes which could actually be crossed, known as traversable wormholes, would only be possible if exotic matter with negative energy density could be used to stabilize them. (Many physicists such as Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, and others believe that the Casimir effect is evidence that negative energy densities are possible in nature.)

At this point, I started to sputter and the words, "What even" came to mind. I quickly restored my mental state by playing a couple of levels of Super Mario Brothers (on my Super Nintendo, because I'm that awesome) and then thought about what I had been thinking about. I'm actually interested in this kind of stuff? The answer is, of course, yes, I do, for the challenge of understanding them and for the wonderful possibilities that come out of these ideas. But I definitely can't talk to a group of middle school girls about an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. So how do I talk about how interesting science is when the understanding of it is so complex? And how can I respect myself as an educator if all I do is blow stuff up?

Of course I wouldn't do that and of course I'll find a good balance between content and exciting things and it's only 20 minutes out of these girls' lives, but think about it. What if these 20 minutes could actually get one, maybe two of these girls honestly thinking about science and engineering? What if it actually made a difference in one of their lives and they went on to make a difference in someone else's life or many people's lives? I don't just want to disregard it. I mean, I can't dream their dreams for them, but maybe I can give them a reason to dream.

Or, you know, maybe I shouldn't stress this much over it. I mean, it's not like every second of every day is an opportunity to change the world or anything.

Change and Flaws

I'm a prideful person.

It's just a fact about myself that I know, like an artist knows his medium or a scientist knows his field. I am prideful and for a long time it's simply been the background to the rest of my life. I recently had lunch and a good walk with a friend and we were talking about the future and plans and calls and somehow I came to say that I was prideful. And my friend said, "But at least you know that about yourself. And, knowing you like I think I do, I know that you've worked to try to correct that." And I said, "Of course," but that's a bit of a lie.

I treat my pride like a sickness with no known cure: I self-medicate with large doses depreciatory remarks. I number my faults, I forget my virtues,  I remember that I lie and I envy and I covet what's not mine and I fail to keep my thoughts pure. I stand in front of the mirror and stare and know that I'm plain and think that has something to do with anything. I stay away from my real faults, like my apathy, my faithlessness, my hypocrisy, because then I might actually be forced to change something, out of disgust or frustration.

I like to complain to my friends that God isn't speaking to me anymore. I like to say that when we're talking about what we're going to do with our lives. I like to stick my chin in the air and look off into the distance, saying that I listened for years and yet I still feel lost now. I feel like it gives me depth as a person. I recently found a list of quotes from another friend from what must have been high school, and one of them was something about us writing the story of our lives and either we're the author or God's the author and if we're unhappy with the way it's turning out, we're unhappy with the author. It's a true thing, as trite as it seemed at the time. I've been writing the story of my life as long as I've been living it, looking for little ways I can make the character of myself seem more exciting. I want my life to turn out like a story. I want there to be some kind of conflict and resolution. Something exciting has to happen before I can pass years in an ellipsis of happiness. After all, I'm important enough to deserve epic events and I want to have all my tragic flaws in place when that does happen.

Plus, a person with these tragic flaws, a real character in a real story, they don't have that simple faith like my friends have, that pure faith. They take the world as it is, see all its flaws and struggle with that for as long as they can, doubting that there can be a good God when there's so much pain in the world, that He could have a plan for them in the midst of the things that are happening to them.  Or if these characters do have a strong simple faith, it's because they know, they are convicted, they are sure that God has a plan for them and that it is to do these wonderful and amazing and necessary things. They're leaders or movers or changers of things in the world around them and that faith has to be solidly there, in the face of everything, in spite of everything, otherwise the good could not be accomplished.

And I think that's where my problem is. I think that I'm above the kind of faith that reads the Bible every day and says prayers every night and listens and looks for God in people and in the world around them. I think I have to be spoken directly to by God and I have to tease the meaning out of all sorts of other things, because life isn't that simple, you know. You can't just limit yourself to praise and worship music and learning about yourself from your friends or from people you trust.

And you can't. Or at least, I can't, because I see good and beauty in things that don't claim God's ownership, and I know that there are other ways I've learned about myself. But I've forgotten the beauty in all those simple faithful things like a good hymn or an easy song or a verse that gives encouragement. And I know there's more out there and there's more to look for, but I need better heart to go looking. I need a heart that's going to be seeking God and not some way to tell its own prideful story more dramatically. But I also need something to change that heart, some reason to be something better than what I've been because even in my pride I can admit that I can't change my heart just because I'm supposed to. I have to want to.

I've been saving up yellow light wishes, another one of those character traits I've added on over time to make me more interesting. And I know that before I was wishing for all the wrong things, in the way that young girls are wont to do. But maybe something will come along that I'll want to wish for. Maybe something will come around that I'll want to change for.