Victory in Truth

My friend just won the Siberian National Agility Dog show. Won! First place in the nation! She is one of the nicest young ladies I know, so I am very pleased for her. She posted many scenes of her Siberian husky playing in the snow, the first snow that particular ambassador of the ancient breed of snow dogs had seen. Snow even before Reformation Day! That is early! (We don't celebrate Halloween so I prefer to try to marginalize it as much as possible and note instead that it is indeed the anniversary of Martin Luther's brave posting of the 95 thesis on the Church door to protest church abuse. He was a lone voice, finally excommunicated for his persistence, but he refused to not voice what he believed was right.)

However, this post is not about Reformation Day, but about being early. All over the northeast, people were saying it was too early for snow, especially snow in this amount. My friend's pictures showed her Siberian frolicking in drifts a foot deep!

While reading about the snow, I found an allusion to Daylight Saving Time ending on Saturday night. I was surprised the paper hadn't mentioned it, but nonetheless, told my family we could all sleep in an extra hour on Sunday morning. Then I went about setting all the clocks back an hour. On Sunday morning, I got up a little later than usual and noticed the atomic clock in the kitchen, a gift of my gadget crazy Dad, still thought it was an hour later.
"That's odd," I thought. I found the set time button, and set it an hour back. It registered the new time, and I made coffee. Then I glanced back at the atomic clock. It had reset itself to an hour ahead. Doesn't it recognize Daylight Saving Time, I wondered?

Then I looked at my phone. It also, like the clock, was still an hour ahead.
"You were supposed to fall back an hour!" I laughed at my phone scornfully, "And you think you are so smart!"
Next, I settled at the computer to write my blog, and noticed the computer also claimed it was still an hour ahead.
"This is strange," I said, in the cold dark morning, "Why don't the machines automatically register the new time?"
I went outside and got the paper. No headline about the time change. Had the reporters forgotten to warn their readers about the time change? This was a first!
Now, a little worried for my sanity, I did an internet search of time change in 2011. I saw again the chart that had told me it was Oct. 30, 2011.
"Is this 2011?" I asked myself, "I think it is...in fact I am almost certain it is."
I turned on the television. The little clock in the corner of the screen, like all the deluded machines in our home, had forgotten to fall back an hour. The news people, uncharacteristically on this day, were not chiding their audience for getting up early and forgetting to fall back and get that happy extra hour of sleep.
I was frantic by now, certain I had lost my mind.
I woke Arvo up.
"I think we missed church," I said.
"Why?" he mumbled.
"I don't think we were supposed to set the clocks back."
He did a quick internet check and told me, "They fall back next weekend."

We didn't make church worship service, but we did get there in time for the adult class afterwards and Asherel's youth group. Our teacher is doing a fascinating and well considered study on the logical basis for faith. He is an extremely intelligent and well read man, and I am loving the class. One of his points he made yesterday is that a common mistake of proving anything is that we often start with the premise we want to prove, and only see "facts" that support that premise, or even worse, manipulate facts to support that premise. Sometimes we become so caught up in believing the truth of a false premise, that we refuse to relinquish our position, even in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise. I thought of my morning fighting the clocks in our home, trying to reset them when they knew they were not supposed to fall back for a week. I was completely convinced the clocks all over the world were wrong, and I was the only poor soul who was going to know what time it was that day.

My teacher was demonstrating how the theory of evolution, despite insolvable flaws and evidence to the contrary, continues to be the dominant theory of how life evolved. It is always hard to believe that intelligent, dedicated masses of people could be so wrong, but from my research and study of the evidence, it sure looks wrong to me. Where are the transitional fossils, how does one explain "irreducibly complex" structures like the Krebs cycle or the mammalian eye which had to appear all at once intact or have no possible way of working? How did matter arise out of nothing if the universe had a beginning (Big Bang) and if it didn't have a beginning, why haven't the stars all burned out?  I sat in the class, and remembered my morning spent convinced that Daylight Saving Time had arrived, despite all the evidence that it had not.

When I was finally ready to concede that Daylight Saving Time would not arrive for a week, I had a new dilemma. Should I set every one of our multitudinous clocks in our home back to the correct time...or just let them be wrong for a week? I decided to set them to the correct time. I thought it was important that there be victory in truth.

Psalm 25:5

⁵ Guide me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are God my Savior,
   and my hope is in you all day long.

Delusions

I sent the art gallery owner an album of photographs of my art work. I felt before lugging all my work over to a meeting with her, it would be wise to have her select the pieces she was most interested in. Then I set about daydreaming of how to spend the millions I would make when my undiscovered talent was finally discovered. I thought of how she would open that album, and within seconds would be on the phone, telling me my work was not only to take center stage in the gallery but she wanted to set up a one woman show now, today, and begin printing flyers.
"How does The Future of Art is Here in Charlotte sound for a title?" she asked me in my happy musings.
My phone was blinking, alerting me to a new email.
I smugly scrolled to my gmail, and opened the letter from the gallery. I could almost hear the applause.

"Thankyou for sharing your album," she wrote,"While your work has a great deal of creativity and energy, it is not quite at the maturity level I am seeking for our gallery......"  There was more. She still wanted to meet to discuss greeting card art for which she felt I was suited, and she would be willing to display, and she could suggest how to improve my fine art portfolio. I will take her up on that....later. With my visit to help Amy and my son's wedding looming, I don't have the time or energy for another project. Frankly, all my energy was siphoning off into keeping a stiff upper lip.
"Please don't be discouraged..." she wrote, as though that would somehow pick my chin up off the floor.

Her gallery did display some truly gorgeous art. I shouldn't be ashamed that I lack that level of "maturity"....whatever that means. But what really distresses me is that I was deluded enough to think I did. Am I like one of those early entrants in American Idol tryouts, that everyone laughs at, and they put on TV because no one can imagine how anyone that sings like that could even begin to think they could be the next American Idol? How many other areas of my life am I faking myself out in that way?  Will the next gmail be from one of my kids:
"Dear Mom, while you get an A for effort, you lack the maturity to be a convincing and effective mother. However, you seem to have a talent for raising dogs. Perhaps you should focus your energies in that direction instead."
And most disturbing, a gmail from the toilet:
"Dear homekeeper, while I applaud your efforts at approximating cleanliness, you lack the maturity to do a truly thorough job and I would suggest you apply your energies towards a low skilled job that would pay for a house cleaner that knows what she is doing."

But I am not discouraged. Discouragement looks like someone bawling her eyes out while the dog creeps from his bed and lays his silky chin on her lap and lets her run tear stained fingers through his ruff......

Arvo and I went on a walk in the excruciating heat on a treelined sidewalk while Asherel was in youth group. The sun tried valiantly to melt us but it couldn't quite vaporize us through all the shadows cast by the overhanging limbs. Light and dark danced around us.  That's just how it is sometimes. Life is filled with lightness and darkness. Exaltation and Disappointment. Sickness and healing. Reality and Delusion. The pastor at the church had mentioned that in heaven there will be no darkness. It will all be light. And all the fears that assail us in the middle of the dark night will be forever gone.  It occurred to me, does that mean no more sleep in heaven? Because frankly, I really look forward to going to bed each night, curling up with a good book, and drifting off to a land of fantasy....one not created by my own delusions of grandeur.

John 12:
³⁵ Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. ³⁶ Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”

Paralyzed With Crazy

My student gazed at me, pen poised to record the glorious diamonds of sparkling thought that shimmered from every word I spoke.

"First, the theory not only explains the universe but creates it."
Asherel glanced up.
"Are you writing this down?" I demanded.
She bent back over her notebook.
"Next," I continued, "We create history by observation rather than history creating us."
She squinted to keep her face impassive.

"There is no model- independent test of reality. It follows that  a well constructed model creates a reality of its own."

"I'm confused," said Asherel.

"These words are quoted from one of our preeminent scientist, Stephen Hawking. You know of him, right?"
She shook her head.
"Ok, be sure you are taking notes.  Stephen Hawking is a professor of applied math and physics at Cambridge U. He is almost completely paralyzed but still writes and teaches using a mouth stick and computer. He does not believe in God, but believes in materialistic determinism."

The goal during my current events time with Asherel is to teach her current events, but also to work on her speed note taking skills, comprehension, understanding bias, rewording complex thoughts into her own words and such noble goals like that. In reality, it often degenerates into who gets frustrated first.

"But what does it mean?" she asked.
"Material determinism means that matter follows its own rules and predetermined activity, and there is no free will and no guiding force...like a God. In a sense, matter is its own God."
"That's crazy," she said.
"Now, his so-called M-theory..."
"What does the M stand for?"
"Mentally unbalanced.," I said, "Let me continue. His M theory is an attempt to come up with a single unified theory of the universe. Newton and Einstein couldn't do it, so Hawking is determined to figure it out."
"Mom, I'm confused."
"Just take notes. Ok, now before the Big Bang, time did not exist. Our universe has infinite parallel universes where every possible version of the universe exists simultaneously."
"How do they know?" she asked.
"I assume they did an experiment," I answered knowledgeably.

Now came the critical part of our current events study. Could she restate the article from her notes in her own words.
She began just as I was sipping my hot tea.
"Stephen Hawking is a paralyzed atheist."
You can imagine for yourself what happened to that sip of hot tea. I'm lucky I didn't aspirate and drown. If laughter is medicine, I overdosed.

But I think her summary is on to something. The extremes to which people will go to avoid the necessity of a guiding force, a God, is indeed paralyzing. I am sure Stephen Hawking is probably a genius, and I am very sorry for his disabling disease that he has lived nobly with. However, I do not think it is his disease which is paralyzing him as much as his attempts to explain away any need for God. That makes me much much sadder for him.

Isaiah 44:20
He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"
"

Delusions of control

The two big dogs were leashed together waiting anxiously at the front door.
The puppy, Zach, displaying uncanny Bible memorization ("and a little child shall lead them" Isaiah 11:6) grabbed hold of the leash and began dragging Lucky and Honeybun around the room.
The big dogs certainly had the strength and the teeth to resist, but they did not. They let the sassy puppy lead them across the living room. Zach, meanwhile, thought he was calling all the shots and he was quite pleased with himself. He zigged and he zagged, tugging the leash in his mouth and the long suffering big dogs hung their heads and let him drag them. I watched, amazed that neither of the older dogs swatted him , or snarled, or reprimanded him at all for his youthful arrogance. Either one of them could easily have killed the little whippersnapper with one snap of their jaws, but instead they mutely let him think he was the one in control.

It was funny, but it made me think of how often I make the same error. The One who has all the power in the universe lets me think I hold my destiny in my hand, if I am just smart enough, or righteous enough, or diligent and patient enough. But I am just a puppy tugging the leash of Heaven at His whim, and for whatever reason, He doesn't squash me like a mosquito.

2 Chronicles 13:12
¹² God is with us; he is our leader. His priests with their trumpets will sound the battle cry against you. ....do not fight against the LORD, the God of your fathers, for you will not succeed."