Thinking

You ever notice how much we impose our own thoughts on others? You talk to someone you've known for years and you just assume that you still share a lot of common thoughts that changed with you as you grew to understand the world in a different way. We think everyone sees what we see- have you ever tried to explain algebra to a sixth grader who's never seen it before? Solving for a variable is more difficult than you remember. It's the same thing with learning to read music or cooking for the first time or anything like that. We forget, or at least I do, that other people have brains of their own, containing different thoughts and opinions than I have in mine.

I do the same thing with my emotions and fears. If I'm upset, everyone else must be too. If I've had a great piece of news, it should make everyone else's day too. If I'm afraid that someone's mad at me or disappointed in me, they must be furious and ashamed of me. If I notice someone looking at me, they must have feelings for me. I'm really good at backing up all of this with facts I notice, twisted to make irrefutable, fit for what I think is true.

There's no good way around all these biases. The best I can do is recognize that they exist, when I'm thinking about things and hope to discredit them in my stronger moments. The fact is, I can't get out of my brain to understand what's inside yours or his or hers or theirs, any one of the thousands and millions and billions of thems out there. I can try, but it'd take effort. I'm not good at effort. I'd rather run the same rut over and over again, and complain about why I can't get out.

And if I can't get out of my head to understand you, who is human and rather fundamentally similar to me, how can I pretend that I can understand what's going on in God's head? Answering questions of Why Creation is the way it is, Why we're given what we have, all of those require understanding what goes on in God's potentially metaphorical head.

I mean, it's not like God hasn't tried. Beyond giving us all of these amazing things to look at and study, God's also endeavored to have people try to explain God's thoughts to us. God even gave us Jesus. We've had a couple millenniums to grapple with all of this. It's difficult.

But I do think all of this requires grappling. We have to try to understand these things, and I know I haven't tried enough. I think I've looked at the Bible like I look at dirt- on a surface level, I understand what it is and how it functions in everyday life, but it's kinda always been there, and I don't really understand what it means to dig in it, how to use it to make things grow. I need to, though.

I've been thinking a lot about the way I see God. From the sermon two Sundays ago, when I was introduced to the quote, "God created Man in his own image and Man, being a gentleman, returned the favor," to a conversation with a quasi-friend, when he defined the attributes of God and I realized that I was afraid to answer, because I'd be wrong. How can I try to understand how other people think if I don't even know what I think?

I need to define what I think. I need to think about what other people think. I need to understand the ways I've been creating God in my own image, and the times when I've seen God for who God is, because I'm sure those times must exist. (And while I'm doing all that thinking, I still have to work and interact and coexist and try to bring good into the world, because if I'm not acting, my brain won't let me just think. It's a fault.) But I need to try. And in trying, I need to do. I don't need to be dragged down anymore.

Intentional

I was walking down one of the hallways after church with a friend and we were talking about what to give up for Lent, whether I should try out giving up meat this year, what my friend should do, et cetera. Sometimes in life, some spirit of good takes over my thoughts and my mouth and my emotions and at the exact moment when I want to curl up on the floor and cry, a good word pours out of my mouth. This happened as we were walking apart (I assume I was late for a meeting or a show and that's why I didn't stop to finish the conversation). I said something like, "Maybe you can give up thinking bad thoughts. You know, be more intentional with the way you think."

Be more intentional. Don't let yourself think those damaging thoughts. Be more intentional.

Yesterday, as I was trying to make something happen between my brain, my fingers and the keyboard, the word maintaining kept coming up. I've just been maintaining; you know, maybe maintaining isn't so bad; sometimes maintaining takes just as much effort as excelling; I feel like I'm maintaining this life, stuck in this cage, unable to make anything happen. I do think that's what I've been doing recently, maybe for most of this year: maintain, just get through this stretch, keep it up, just stay at this altitude, we can do this. There's no climbing or sinking. Just maintaining.

In a way, I think being intentional is the opposite of maintaining. Being intentional means having a purpose, and working to accomplish that purpose. Maintaining is just staying the course. It's that boring part that movies and books skip over because no one wants to read about the three years you spent just making ends meeting, just keeping things together. When you're intentional, you're making changes that are propelling you in a new direction. You're thinking your way through things. You're making things happen. You're acting. You say no (oo-oo) to status quo.

So I'm being more intentional for Lent. I'm putting my brain back into my faith. I'm watching the things that I think and say and do, and I'm questioning the thoughts I've let run ruts into my mind. I'm also giving up things (which I won't list, because then you'll think less of me) but they're mostly places where I've let myself hide, things I don't actually need. See, the great thing about the Christian year (in tandem with my regular year) is that it gives you so many chances to start over: Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, the chance to start a new year there, and it's often followed by the summer, a chance to start something completely different than the school year; fall comes around and it's a school year again; then Advent and the chance to think about the coming of Christ in new ways; then Christmas and the New Year; then Lent, this chance to re-focus yourself, to understand anew what Christ's life means; and finally, to top it all off, Easter. If Easter's not a new beginning, I don't know what is. So this chance to try again is the perfect time to be more intentional, to stop maintaining and to begin to take some actions.

Just as long as I can get grace to do that, since maintaining was taking all that I had.

Lenten Tweets

I am having absurd amounts of difficulty writing anything that isn't in some way pathetic, whining, and sad. So, instead of writing, I will offer you some potential Lenten tweets, because 140 characters is a good limit for people who like to use too many words.

I only knew it was Mardi Gras because Ash Wednesday was the next day. #churchkidproblems

I was wearing purple and I felt very in tune, liturgically. #HappyLent

This year for Lent, I'm flat out giving up all the bad things I do. It's a short list. #humblebrag

Staring at my plan for Lenten devotions, looking at the readings from the BCP. Too much. #smh

Now, the year I gave up yelling at basketball games. That was a mistake. #goheelsgoamerica

Those ashes definitely came off more easily than my mascara did. #notsurewhatthatmeans

Can't we just skip Lent this year? I mean, February certainly thinks it's Easter already.

I already gave up Facebook for Lent! Can you do repeats on that? #Lentenseconds

But really, 40 days? Who does that? #seriously

So this whole forgiveness-of-sins thing. You can get that done weekly, right? #thingspileup

RT If you gave up Twitter for Lent. #ohwait #jkguys

I think up the best tweets during church (esp. the sermon) but I forget them by the time I get to my phone. #cruelirony #firstworldproblems

You know, if Jesus were to die today, Twitter would probably crash with all of the expressions of sadness and tweeting great quotes of His.

#FF means Fasting Fridays. #yougottawalkbeforeyoucanrun

Really? Chocolate, caffeine, and Facebook are the things keeping you away from God the most? #doubtful #harshtweet

So does this mean we can't smile until March? #Lentquestions

RT @EveryTweetEver Poignant Tweet to end a rant

A Letter to the Little Old Ladies Beside Me at the Duke Game

February 8th, 2012

Dear Little Old Ladies Beside Me at the Duke Game,

First, let me apologize for my behavior. No doubt you have heard your share of profanity in life, as it is inescapable in this broken world in which we live, but I feel that it is necessary to apologize for the creative and vociferous brand of basketball-induced curse words you were subjected to tonight. I also acknowledge that I could have stood up less violently and less often, clapped more quietly, and created noise for defensive possessions in a much more court-centered manner. I hope that my behavior did not detract from your game-attending experience, such as it was.

However, I do feel a need to explain this behavior to you. I don't need to remind you that this is the second time I'm apologizing to you for my actions during the game- I'm sure you recall the moment during halftime when I turned to you with a kind smile and a hoarse voice, informing you that I was used to being in the lower level, surrounded by students doing almost all of the same things I was doing- being loud, being supportive, and being totally engaged by the game. It was indeed my first time up in the section I was in tonight, and I was unaware of how things worked up here- how you don't stand unless it's an important possession, how you don't cheer along with the band or the student section, and how you don't stay to sing the Alma Mater. I clasped my hands in front of me and sang Hark the Sound by myself after you left, unable to believe how the game ended, unable to apologize for the ridiculously loud scream that escaped me as that final shot from that remarkably talented freshman, who had the intelligence and self-confidence to give himself a nickname, went smoothly into the basket. I was shaking after you left. I was shaking from the emotion and passion and disappointment and virulent hatred that the game had caused to mix and flow throughout my core. I hope you made it safely to your car, and were able to listen to the post-game report as you sat in the admittedly horrible traffic after the game was over.

I had some time to reflect on the game afterwards as I walked back to my apartment. It was a rather long walk in the cold and I had it all to myself, thinking about why this game meant enough to me to be inconsiderate to you. It's not just that I didn't understand how things worked in your section of the Dean Dome. It's not just that I proudly attended this university and cheered for this basketball team for what constituted the happiest years of my life so far. It's not just that I hate Duke with the same passion that all true Carolina fans hate Duke, for their flops and their disgusting control over the referees and their smug, asinine faces. I'm sure that you feel the same way. Even if you didn't attend Carolina, you have some link to the school. You're season ticket holders, so you clearly care about the outcome of this game and feel some kind of dislike towards the players who wear that darker blue. Yet you were able to contain yourselves and enjoy the game, able to leave that wonderful room in a sustained and unshaken manner.

I think this game in particular meant more to me as an individual because I worked for it. All through my years at Carolina, I played in the band. I didn't get tickets to the Duke game my freshman year, which was understandable and bearable. I honestly didn't know what I was missing out on, though I still had memories of Tyler Hansbrough's broken nose from the year before ringing through my head as I watched it on my tiny dorm TV, the Smith Center clearly visible out my window. The next year, I got to go to the game, playing with the band and cheering with all the rest. It was a wonderful win in a championship year. The year after that, as a junior with senior status and a guaranteed ticket to the game next year through the band, I gave up my phase 1 ticket to a friend who was a senior who had never been to a Duke game. This was fine, because, really, I wasn't yet a senior and I think everyone deserves a chance to watch these two great teams play one another. I watched it again from my dorm TV. Really, it was OK to have missed out on that one, since it was the NIT year, though that was a bad year to give up yelling at basketball for Lent.

Then, last year, I went to the game with the band again, already completely proud of my team for the way they pulled together over the course of the season. In my last home game as a student, I got to watch our team beat Duke in the Smith Center on my senior night. I played in a televised pep rally before the game and I stood and cheered through every second of both halves. It was such a great time- really, I am not the person whose words should be used to describe the intense atmosphere of this rivalry game and the absolute elation of winning. I was signed up to go to the ACC tournament with the band, and so I did, being allowed to take a couple of days away from student teaching for this opportunity. I honestly thought, with a sinking heart, that the loss to Duke in the final of the ACC tournament, having to stand there and listen to their band play all of their songs when we should have been playing ours, I honestly thought that was going to be my last in-person experience of our team playing Duke.

I think it's important to note that all of these experiences were given to me. Through the generosity of alumni of the university and through the money of the good people of the state of North Carolina, I was able to attend Carolina and graduate debt free. Even though I dedicated four years of my life to the band to be able to travel with the team for a tournament, I gained so much from my time with UNC Bands that it's unfair to say I earned it. I really view my entire time at Carolina, like almost everything else in my life, as a gift and a blessing, a gift and a blessing of which I have taken full advantage.

But this year, I didn't expect to be at the game. Through a few well-placed happenstances, I found myself in the standby line outside the Smith Center right after five in the afternoon. I stood there, with around fifty other people, for four hours, watching the rest of the students file by in their phases, commiserating about the cold and the mud with the other people in the standby line. It was surprisingly amusing, getting to laugh with these grad students around me, talking over the situations that led us to be there, tweeting and jumping and chanting. I was surprisingly excited when they held out those tickets as we lined up outside the entrance where we had seen so many people walk in before. I grabbed the ticket that was held out to me and turned back to see half of my new friends stuck outside, my ticket being the last one they had. I can't say that I deserved that ticket any more than the people who got there minutes after me did. But they smiled hopefully (or at least the ones I had been standing beside did) and I went inside to find my seat, beside you two, right after the National Anthem.

I stood there for four hours. I had something invested in this. And as I walked back, I realize that that's what's different about my life now. A year and a half ago, I was ready to hand it all over to God and just see where He dropped me, totally accepting of whatever it is that was in His plan for my life. But over this year, things have changed. It hasn't been a gift anymore. I've made decisions, some right and some wrong, and I've traveled and made money and spent money and worked towards goals that I set for myself in a plan that I made all on my own. I have a soul now, you know? I have something I've earned, something I'm proud of, something that took effort from me, so much more effort than I've put in in the past. This year has been the standby line of my life, where I've watched other people's lives blossom while I strove for the same thing, just without that gift. But I'm grateful and happy for that standby line of a year, because now, for the first time in my life, I have something to give up. Now, it actually means something when I give my life away. It actually takes some effort, because I have things that I don't want to lose.

So when that ball went through that hoop at the end of the game, it wasn't just losing a game. It was losing a game and losing that effort that went into getting to the game. Because you want your life to be worth it. You want the things you work for to work out for the best. You want joy and happiness just like everybody else. I honestly don't care if the fates let someone else just have good things while I work for them, but I do care when we're all deprived of good things (even when that good thing would have come at the expense of that rat-faced, foul-mouthed coach and his legions of classless, obnoxious players and fans). It's a blow and an injustice, though admittedly on one of the smallest levels possible. But sports help us see the metaphors in life- they teach us to never, ever, give up; they teach us that if you work hard, and if you're lucky, you can go far; and they let us see how passionately we can come together to support a cause.

I hope this letter finds you well, and enables you to better understand my emotional state as I stood beside you at that game, jumping up and down, cheering, screaming, yelling, laughing, smiling, and finally, shaking, watching my team lose a game that should have been theirs. May life grant you a game next year with a better seat partner and a better outcome.

Best wishes,
Addie Jo Schonewolf

Conceptual Difficulties

I really want ideas that you can hold in your hand, that you can examine at your leisure and test and react to, I want things you can do and things you can see, events you can watch unfurl and initial conditions you can change and set how you want, and I want an unlimited amount of time to figure stuff out. But really, beyond experiments and things like that, I want to be able to take the concept of gravity or orbital dynamics and put my fingers around it, toss it up in the air and pull it apart and have it impart the facets of its existence into my brain without an equation or a lengthy explanation. I want something different from the way I have to learn things now.

It'd make explaining things easier as well. Instead of comparing a complex and abstract idea to something more simple and concrete, you could just hand students an idea and say, "Here. Take this, play around with it for an hour or so, come back tomorrow to check and see that you didn't miss anything, and then you can go on to the next thing." Actually, can we get on that, science? Just find some way to impart facts without pencils and papers and diagrams and graphs and extrapolations.

I just spent a couple of hours today doing something that I haven't done in a while: trying to understand something. Part of it was trying to dredge of memories of things that I'd thought I'd learned before, but most of it was staring and graphs pretending like I had never heard the words Galaxy Rotation Curve used together before, and doing algebra and avoiding unit conversions and thinking thoughts like, "Galaxies behave like fluids, right?" and "That's an elliptical orbit, so you can't use Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, yeah?" There was also a lot of, "I hope I'm not wrong. Please don't let me be wrong. I'm going to look so dumb if I'm wrong. Oh, shhh...oot, I'm wrong."

Now, I can tell you the approximate number of miles in a light year and I can explain moon phases and seasons like no one's business. I also have a propensity to spout random facts which are, in general, scientifically or historically accurate. But people expect you to know everything about science when you work in a planetarium and science center and that's just not the case with me. And even with things I'm supposed to understand, like the general expected shape of rotation curves for galaxies, the observed shape of rotation curves for galaxies and why that implies the existence of Dark Matter, I don't really. I just have a phrase or two that will clear up a commonly answered question, and hope that there's not much more than that that's required of me.

Part of the problem with being an astronomy educator is that astronomy concepts are so abstract. You can't pick up a planet, you can't hold a star in your hand, and it's rather difficult to get a sample of an asteroid or a comet to study it. I mean, moon rocks might just be rocks, but they've got a substantial cost of shipping- that's why you have to go through a training on how to handle and treat these little pieces of outer space. Most of us haven't been off of Earth to see that the Sun actually floats out there in the void among the stars. No one's been out beyond our solar system, over to even the nearest star, to see the vast expanses of space that separate us from the things that twinkle when we turn away from the Sun.

I mean, think about it for a second. Imagine walking out of the room you're in and going to the next room. Now walk out of your house. Now out of your neighborhood. Do you still have a good concept of the distance you're traveling? Great, now go to the grocery store. Head over to the nearest mall. Now, can you imagine walking to the next town over? How about to the nearest city? Not driving- don't hop in your car and let the world pass you by. Actually walk the distances, let your mind get lost in the trees, realize how far away your eyes see on a clear day and realize how close that is. Now, the distance to the nearest big city for me is around eight miles. I don't have in my head a good concept of what eight miles is. The Moon, the nearest natural thing to us in space, is almost a quarter of a million miles away from us. I can't properly conceive of what a hundredth or a thousandth of that amount of space is. If I can't get a handle on it, how can I explain it to someone else?

So we use words and we use analogies- if the Earth was a size of a basketball, then a tennis ball would be the Moon, except the tennis ball, to be to scale, would need to be around 24 feet away. On that scale, the Sun would be the size of a house and it would be almost two miles away. If you shrunk the entire Earth down to the size of a basketball.

What. Even.

So yeah, I want something easier to understand, something I can actually wrap my head around and explain without props. Then again, nothing else has the same awe and wonder thing with it as contemplating the universe does, so I guess we take what we can get.