Wind Chimes

When I was a kid, walking to the public library, there was one house just down the street from us that had wind chimes hanging in their front balcony. I always looked forward to walking by that house.

Such a soothing sound—almost like birdsong or the chirp of a cricket—a simple object fashioned by human hands to capture the wild, gentle, calming, quickening sound of the wind.

I’ve been a grown up for quite some time now. And I have loved wind chimes for that entire period. For the past four years I’ve even lived in an apartment with a balcony. Wind chimes are not very expensive. And yet, I never bought them for myself. I never even thought to put them on my Christmas list.

Why settle on disappointment? Why forget the things that make us smile? Why resign ourselves to less than our hearts had secretly hoped to enjoy? Why let dreams fade and longings die away?

Fear will do that. It comes from being hurt. Yes, we all know what that’s like. But sometimes the resignation becomes a habit. Even after the wounds have healed and the fear subsided, still, the heart forgets. Like a bewildered flower, forgetting to strain toward the sunlight.

But I heard wind chimes the other day.

And I remembered.

The Mattress, Bowling Ball, Marble Illustration

So many times I’ve heard this illustration of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: gravity occurs because space itself curves around massive objects. It’s like if you put a bowling ball on a mattress, and then roll a marble near it--the marble will be sucked into “orbit” around the bowling ball, drawing closer until they collide.

For the longest time, this illustration bothered me because aside from the curvature of the mattress, what pulls the marble down toward the bowling ball is gravity. How can you use gravity to explain how gravity works?

But as I thought about it more carefully, I guess it’s not really a major flaw. The problem is, the illustration is trying to explain something that happens in “the real world,” which we generally think of as being in three “spatial” dimensions (plus time); but the illustration envisions three-dimensional objects (bowling ball, marble) on a two-dimensional plain (the surface of the mattress) which has been distorted into three dimensions (that surface is no longer flat, but now has a roughly conical indentation). I suppose the role of gravity in this illustration is really just to keep the marble on the curved two-dimensional plain. (Because without gravity, the marble would continue floating forward in a straight line and leave the plain.

I guess the real problem is that it’s so difficult to visualize the distortion/curvature of a three dimensional field (because that would mean visualizing in four dimensions), so we just have to envision a two-dimensional plain being curved into three dimensions and use it as an analog, but then for the sake of making it easier to visualize, the illustration involves three-dimensional objects, which is a little confusing if you think too much about it, as I have.

But the other thing that always bothered me about this illustration is that it assumes the bodies are in motion relative to each other. Isn't the force of gravity just as powerful between two objects that are stationary in relation to each other as between two objects in relative motion? Maybe some smart person who understands such things can explain.

Further remarks added now after some comments have been made: 


Okay, it seems I did not make the original question clear enough. Let me try again.

The illustration assumes that the two bodies are already in motion relative to each other. The only motion that takes place is not due to the "force" of gravity, but due to the marble already having been set in motion by some other force. Gravity in this illustration does not cause any kind of motion--all it does is to redirect the path of something already in motion. There is a reason why persons offering this illustration will always say that the marble was rolled near the bowling ball, rather than saying it was placed on the curved part of the mattress (because in the latter scenario, they really would be using gravity to explain gravity). If the analogy worked properly, placing the marble on the curved part of the mattress would have no effect; they would both remain stationary in relation to each other. The only reason there is any motion in this illustration is because some unknown force set the marble going to begin with. Gravity does not "pull" the marble, and does not cause motion of any kind--all it does is affect the direction of something that is already in motion.

My question is, in real life (not the analogy), isn't gravity able to cause motion? If you were to place two objects near each other (not moving) and if they were far enough away from other massive bodies that the force of gravity would be greater between these two objects than between them and anything else around, would they not start to move toward each other? Newtonian physics seems to say that they would. I don't know about actual general relativity, but the illustration used to explain it implies they would not.

Sunrise

For some community college art class many years ago, I had to do a group project, and the painting (though it received an "A") was not to my liking. I finally painted over it--I thought it looked interesting during the process of being painted over, so I took a picture:

Here it is finished:

The idea of this painting came into my mind I think in the summer of 2009. I was taking a class on the Pentateuch and we had the option of doing some artwork (with a written explanation) for the final project. I was thinking about the story of Jacob's reconciliation with Esau (after his long night struggling against the angel of the Lord). I didn't actually do the painting until now. (I ended up writing a series of sonnets for the class instead.) I was very dissatisfied when I first finished this, because there was too much contrast in color between the sun part and the hilly farmland part. Then the flowers at the bottom edge sort of sprang up unexpectedly, as it were, tying things together quite nicely, I thought.

More Gratitude, Less Entitlement

I started typing a response to Remigius's comment, and then realized it would be better just to compose a new post.

It's a valid point, certainly, that there would be some benefits to society if the government were to spend more money on subsidizing higher education. There would be some drawbacks, also. And I can't say exactly what the relative merits would be of keeping things as they are versus increasing government spending on education--these things are usually rather complicated.

But what I'm really trying to get at, what really bothers me is the idea that somehow people "deserve" a college education merely by virtue of being alive. Perhaps we could build a better society by giving people more things they haven't earned or done anything to deserve (like free healthcare and even more free education than is already available), but if we do, it ought to be considered a privilege, not an entitlement. A person who is enabled by tax-payer dollars to get a college degree should have an even greater sense of gratitude and indebtedness to society and the government than I have toward my loan companies.

It's interesting, though, how human psychology works. In addition to taking out loans, I received some grants and scholarships during my academic career. I was grateful for these when they were awarded, but I promptly forgot about them--even the ones for which I had to write thank-you letters. Having no head for figures, I don't even remember how much of the cost of my education they covered. I really have very little idea of the value of the free gifts I received to help pay for my degrees.

I do, however, have a profound sense of the value of the loans I took out. I have some idea of how long it's going to take me to pay them off (a very long time), which indicates to me just how lucky I was to be able to take out these loans, and also indicates to me the monetary value of my formal education.

Logically, I ought to be more grateful to the entities that gave me free money, than to those that only lent me money. But the opposite is true, because I have very little sense of the value of the free money, whereas I know very well the value of the money that I am responsible for paying back.

So, anyway ... it's a nice idea for everyone to be able to go to college for free, or for there to be more government grants available to fund people's education. But it's also a nice idea for everyone to know the actual value of the privileges they enjoy, and it seems to me that having to work for those privileges creates just such an awareness--whereas giving them away for free tends to detract from it.

I Heart My Loan Companies

I've been wanting to say for the longest time (and just haven't gotten around to it until now) that I feel a genuine debt of gratitude to the companies who gave me loans so that I could complete both a Bachelor's and a Master's by the age of twenty-five. If it weren't for them, either I wouldn't have been able to attend school at all, or I would've needed to devote myself to earning and raising the money myself in advance, which would probably have taken many, many years.

When I first thought to write about how I love my loan companies, it had not occurred to me that some people would be demanding a free college education for anyone who wants it. I guess now I ought to address them in some way.

Well ... let me just point out that formal education is not free. Professors need salaries. Campuses need classrooms and libraries. Institutions need administrators. These things cost money. They cost a lot of money.

I do not hold to the idea that anyone who wants anything of value has a right to get it for free. If you want something that's worth a lot of money, you should have to work hard for it. This is why I am so deeply grateful that some businesses were willing to loan me large sums of money in advance of my having to work hard, because they trust me to pay them back with interest now that I'm done.

Sure, they did it on the basis of statistical calculations, not because they knew me personally, but nonetheless, they chose to put their faith in me and my ability to make something of myself career-wise. I am deeply grateful for their act of good faith and I am happy to uphold my end of the bargain and pay them back with interest so that they can continue in the business of making it possible for people who are not independently wealthy to get a post-secondary degree.

As I think about it, it seems kind of absurd for people who want greater social mobility to be attacking student loan companies. Such companies make it possible for anyone to pursue a college degree (well, except undocumented immigrants, the illiterate, etc.). Some people think the government (i.e. tax-payers) should simply foot the bill for everything, but to me, it seems much more logical and fair that the individual who receives the benefit of the college degree should be the one paying for it. I mean, honestly, why on earth shouldn't they?

Oh ... and ... I also have a burning need just to say: undying gratitude notwithstanding, those f***ing student loan companies are a big fat pain in the *ss to deal with.

Okay. I'm done.

Silly Heresies

If you've ever taught or attended Bible studies or other adult Christian education, you know that some people have a tendency to think themselves quite the intellectuals for coming up with pesky heretical questions--e.g. "What if 'angels' are really people? What if you're an angel and you don't know it?"

Sometimes I have found myself in the position of being an irritated classmate to such persons, sometimes I am the eager-to-explain-it-all teacher, and other times, I am that heretic, or I could be. But usually, when I have such ideas, I tend to keep them to myself, because I've learned by now that most heresies, while they may seem very clever at first, turn out upon closer investigation to be quite silly, poorly thought out, and easy but tedious to refute.

For example: I have participated in many, many a discussion about the classic formulation of the doctrine of the trinity. And I know the standard heresies. But I've always wondered, "How do we know there are only three persons in the trinity? What if there was a little known fourth person--kind of like the often-forgotten fourth Beatle? Or, since God is infinite, what if there were an infinite number of persons in the trinity--er--the 'infinity'? How can we say we know God exists only in three persons? At an earlier stage in revelation history, it was 'known' that God was one--no trinity at all--so what if someday we find out there are even more divine persons?"

Seems like a reasonable question, right? But when you start thinking about it, it's actually not that interesting or helpful. Because while it is of course possible that there could be more persons in the trinity than we know about, it's pretty much irrelevant because if they exist, they haven't been revealed to us. And the idea that deities from other religious traditions might be additional divine persons equal to the three in the trinity is, I think, ultimately a dead end, since it requires a highly artificial mixing of worldviews (that is, when Hindus, for example, talk about their pantheon, they are talking about a significantly different concept of the revelation/manifestation of God than the Christian concepts involved in explaining the doctrine of the trinity).

Furthermore, it is integral to the Christian belief system that Jesus uniquely reveals the fulness of God's glory, and that the church has preserved a faithful witness to the Christ-revelation in scripture, and that witness contains only indications of three persons in the trinity, not more.

So, anyway ... I find that heresies turn out not to be so interesting after all, and orthodoxy is really the more fascinating and compelling avenue for thought and discussion, because it contains within it so many surprising, beautiful, mysterious paradoxes. Like the classic doctrine of the trinity.

The Lone ... Something-Or-Other

On occasion, I have been asked to identify the role I typically play in a group--you know, for example, the peacemaker, the encourager, the executive. Well, I find that most often, I am the outsider. I have a tendency to feel out of step with everyone else, and if I see a group moving together in one direction, I tend to be the one who tries to point out everything that's wrong with what they're doing.

This came up in group work during my hospital chaplaincy internship. I realized then that being the outsider can get really lonely, and I decided I was not content to continue isolating myself in the name of being different.

Easier intended than done. But I hope I am making progress.

After I posted about the Occupy Wall Street movement yesterday, I immediately started thinking I'd been too hard on them. I could see that essentially my criticism was that they are an unorganized rabble and aren't accomplishing anything--and in the background of this criticism, my general skepticism about the typical proposed solutions of the progressive wing.

I still think "the outsider" can play an important role, and I still think it was worthwhile to publish my thoughts--I think I made a valid point, except that it was too harsh. And I couldn't help smiling when I saw the comment by "Trendsetter" that all the angry mob really needs is a good leader. I had just amended my thinking to reach that very conclusion ... (The words that came to my seminary-trained mind being, "They're like sheep without a shepherd.")

I had also been thinking, from the beginning, to write a follow up post titled "Starting With The Man In The Mirror," reflecting on how I can be the change I wish to see, and actually propose something constructive instead of just criticizing others. That's going to be a hard essay to write, because honestly, I get so overwhelmed by the complexity of everything, it feels impossible to select the best option.

But I'm starting to see how "the outsider" might someday become "a prophet." No, I have no delusions of being there yet. Clearly, I am still in the stage of being uncharitable and overly critical and isolating myself by being "different." And I appreciate everyone who has listened with patience and grace and found what was worthwhile in my "different" perspective, in spite of the unworthiness of the spirit in which I have, at times, written or spoken.

I also appreciate finding out I'm not so alone after all. My brother found this essay by someone with a clearer understanding than I had yesterday: "The Conflicting Conflicts of Occupy Wall Street" by James Pearson.

Anyway ... thank you to those who have listened for the good in what I have to say. Your gracious, respectful attitude encourages me to be kinder to others. I will try to be less of a critical outsider and strive to imitate the great compassionate prophets whose stories I know.