Pausing to Discern

It was flipped upside down, from darting tongue to frantically wiggling tail. I don't know who had flipped it or why, but likely I had interupted a bird about to feast. I could see all its little underbelly scales which are used to propel snakes at an alarmingly fast 13 km/hr. It was orange-ish,  so I thought it might have been a corn snake or (horrors!) a copperhead.

The corn snake is a docile creature, reluctant to bite and very helpful in keeping the rodent population under control. It has an unfortunate similar color/markings to the poisonous copperhead, so my first response on seeing the baby wiggling helplessly upside down was to shriek and find someone to stomp on it. But that moment passed and I paused to watch it. I saw then that the distinctive poison snake triangle head was not there, thus deduced it was a harmless and even useful corn snake.

As I watched, it reminded me of a turtle on its back, flailing helplessly unable to flip over. I thought briefly about helping it, but that idea quickly passed as I remembered how much I abhor snakes. But somehow, my better nature wouldn't allow me to pass it by. It was a baby, afterall. So I stood there, shielding it from whatever predator had flipped it, and cheered it on.

"You can do it, snake!" I encouraged, "Exert yourself!"
The snake wriggled frantically. I knew I would have nightmares, but I continued to watch the mortal struggle. The darker diamond markings would have fooled anyone. Why would a harmless and even in the snake world, docile snake want to look like the murderous Copperhead? How many innocent corn snakes had been stomped on by herpetophobics?

Finally, beginning with the tail, the little underscales began to grab at the ground, and as it slowly found traction, it began to flop over. Before it could totally unroll and escape with the possibility of darting into my shoes and paralyzing me with fear, I hurried on with my interrupted walk. 

But I continued to consider the thought of the benign masquerading as poisonous.  It was the opposite of the snake in the Bible who was death itself masquerading as life. In both cases, I think God was telling me that what was needed was discernment.  Things are not always what they seem. First blush responses are sometimes not based on truth. At times, it is best to overcome aversion, prejudice, fear, preconceptions.... and pause long enough to discern what is dangerous, and what is not.  I am an impulsive creature with an almost pathological desire to do things quickly and early. The older I get, and the more slowly my neurons fire and my muscles respond, I am being forced to slow down and consider more before action. And I am finding more and more that sometimes those Copperheads in life are really Corn snakes.
What looks like death, is really benign, even useful.

Even the disciples were thrown into dismay when their "so-called" Lord was carried from the cross, dead.
All their hopes and dreams of the victorious Messiah gone.  And then, He appeared, resurrected, back from the hellish journey where He had to bear separation from His Father long enough to carry the horrific burden of our sins and pay the penalty we would now not have to. What looked like defeat was the Ultimate Victory. Perfect Justice and Perfect Mercy all rolled up in one act.

I am glad I stopped and watched the baby snake. As it slithered off in one direction, I scurried off in the other, smiling instead of shuddering.

Genesis 50:20
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

The Mathematics of Chickens

The introduction she wrote for the moderator to announce her speech tantalized the audience:
"The next speaker will be answering a question that has been asked since time began. She has spent weeks researching the topic, and will now help solve this ancient mystery."
Then Asherel, my shy 13 year old, strode to the lectern and said,
"Why DID the chicken cross the road?"

For the next 5 minutes, she gave a thoughtful and scholarly discourse on exactly what might have tempted the chicken to cross the road. She gave some ancient philosophers' takes on the matter ( e.g. Einstein: Did the chicken cross the road, or did the road move beneath her?") She discussed the sorts of food and habits that may have induced the chicken to cross the road. She mentioned that chickens live in the here and now, with little to no attention to consequences or past successes. She noted that chickens, contrary to what you may think about the implication of their name, are really quite brave.

The coup de force was when she went to the chalkboard to show the mathematical probability of the chicken crossing the road successfully with an average car speed of 55 mph, and a maximum chicken speed of 9 mph, and an average road width. She used her research on chicken vision and when it would have first discerned the car, then the formula rate times time equals distance to calculate how long it would take the car to reach the chicken, and the same formula to determine how fast the chicken would cross the road. She showed objectively with her careful calculations that the thrill seeking chicken would cross the road safely with .2 seconds to spare.

Finally she closed her speech saying really the question was a 2 part conundrum. "Why?" is a question that has never been successfully answered. Who, what, where, and when are objective and easily dispatched, but "Why" is an elusive query that has plagued mankind since time immemorial. The second part of the question can be easily now answered: Did the chicken cross the road? Yes.

As I watched my once shy child return to her seat to laughter and applause, I thought, "She has grown up before my eyes. She is funny and sweet and kind... all of a sudden she is someone I not only love, but really really like."  This is why parenting is worth every wretched, sleep deprived, hand wringing moment. Sometimes they become even more than what you hoped.

I wonder if my heavenly Father looks down on me, and ever smiles to Himself and says, "Wow, she has transformed. I knew it would happen of course, since I know everything, but my my, it is nice to be proven right!" So much of transformation is hidden, elusive, unobserved and unexplainable until suddenly it is there. A soul has ripped across the gulf of disbelief and reached the other side, where Jesus claps and delights, as the forces that might have crushed now whiz harmlessly by.

Deuteronomy 11: 11-12
¹¹ But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. ¹² It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

Seeing What I Could Be

The idea of building a 6 gram helicopter was disrupting my sleep. How on earth were the kids going to do it? As I read over the Science Olympiad forums though, it was clear that the best helicopters came very close to that minimum weight. With the model of my double plastic cup rubber band powered helicopter in mind, I headed to the Hobby store. I would consult with the experts.

There are clearly some people who should not be in customer relations jobs. I think if you don't like people, you should work with sharks or maybe gardens.... but you shouldn't own a Hobby shop. Because HELLO, guess who is doing the hobbies? People!

But I had the ill fortune to walk into a hobby shop where the owner clearly did not have the patience or inclination to deal with beginning hobby-ists.  As I grow older, I must rely more on my wit and charm to help people get past my inanity. My good looks just don't seem to cut it anymore. Unfortunately, my wit and charm is not always all that it could be either.....

"Hi! " I said cheerily, noting I was the only one in the empty shop, yet the owner did not bother to look up or move towards me in any kind of welcoming stance.
"I need to build a helicopter," I began, sure that would elicit some response.
"Just sold the last one," he grunted without glancing my way.
"Well I need to build it myself, and I would like some advice on materials. It can only weigh 4 grams."
That did make him look up.
"4 grams?"
"So I am thinking balsam wood."

Later when I recounted the story to Asherel, she cringed and said, "You didn't say balsam wood, did you? It is BALSA wood."
I looked it up and indeed it is balsa wood, though there is a Balsam wood also:

Balsam Wood. Palo Balsamo.—This is a South American wood, derived from an unknown tree, which is believed to contain guaiacin, and which yields to distillation nearly six parts of a thick viscous aromatic oil. This contains as its chief constituent a crystalline solid of alcoholic character, melting at 91° C. (195.8° F.) and corresponding closely to the formula C₁₄H₂₄O. It has found employment in perfumery. (Schim. Rep., April and Oct., 1892.)

Balsam is useful in making incense. Balsa, on the other hand, is a very light wood and is what I did indeed mean, but the Hobby Shop man overlooked my mistake and waved me in the direction of the Balsa.
He called out to another morose and rather unfriendly fellow in the back to help me find the Balsa.
This man looked like he hadn't slept in a week, and perhaps that explains his taciturnity.
He showed me the balsa strips and I asked him how we would shape the strips to form a helicopter rotor frame. I knew we soaked them, but asked him how long.
"Til they bend," he said.
"How long is that, though?"
"Long enough to get what you want," shouted the most disagreeable owner from the front of the store.
"I read that I will need a bearing also," I said.
"For what?"
"For the rotor to spin against," I declared.
But then he felt the need to clarify what this bearing would be attached to and how. Of course, I didn't have the foggiest notion but tried to bluster my way through it, the way my dad taught me. Use a lot of words and hand movements and say things like, "Of course" and "obviously".  In the end, Mr. Taciturn said, "I suggest you draw up some plans and then come back."
"Oh we will," I assured him, "I just want some materials for them to play with and practice, trial and error.... you know how useful trial and error can be."
He didn't answer and I think the Hobby Blobby in the front shook his head.
"But we won't get the bearing for now, just the balsam and the tissue paper covering. Will that rip? It doesn't look very sturdy."
No it was not very sturdy, but if I was careful, it would not rip. They rang up my supplies and hurried me out the store. Mr. Hobby Blobby didn't look up as I said, "Goodbye now! Thanks for all your help!"

When I left the store, I realized that I felt bad... and stupid.  Now while this might be true, there are some people whose company I leave, and no matter what I say or do, they make me feel encouraged, hopeful, and respected.  I wondered what  people feel upon leaving my company. I am often irritated by incompetence and carelessness. I do not respond well to people who exhibit those traits. But I remember a Bible study once where we are admonished to treat others as though we see them with God's eyes, with all the potential of what they could become. That attitude gives a whole different perspective on what we are viewing.What might have happened if instead of seeing an ill-prepared, uninformed, and bumbling neophtye, the store owner had seen an aeronautic engineer in the making? What enthusiasm might he have sparked, and latent genius uncovered?
I left with a prayer for my own attitude, "Oh Lord, let me see the potential in every creature you have made, and treat them as though they have already become what you designed them to be."

Mark 10:20-22 (New International Version)

 ²⁰"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."
 ²¹Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
 ²²At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Pecking Metal

Tap tap tap tap.....taptaptap......TAPTAPTAP
Someone was getting faster and angrier in his taptapping. The dogs and I looked around as we walked, trying to find the source of the exasperated hammering. Then I saw the Downy Woodpecker, on a metal post, trying desperately to make a hole in the metal. His poor beak bounced off the reluctant surface repeatedly, so he would peck faster and more furiously, but to no avail. What was particularly ironic about this display was he had chosen a metal porch column when the yard was filled with lovely trees; trees made of wood not of metal. Unfortunately, I don't speak Woodpecker, and was unable to direct him to a more likely surface to bore for dinner.

Honestly, don't you think God would have programmed the bird to know the difference between wood and metal? His very essence, his name would indicate that he should be pecking WOOD, but there he was, oblivious to his calling, trying to be what he was never intended to be, a metalpecker.

The hard thing in life is to know when to persevere because we are on the cusp of victory, and when to recognize we are just pecking metal and we are never going to find the juicy grub we seek there. I think this is a very hard issue- this discernment to recognize when one more peck and we hit paydirt vs. fruitless beak blunting folly. Is it rejection number 301 from literary agents.... or should I have called it quits at rejection 20? We all know it is darkest before dawn and if we can just hang in there a few more minutes we will see the sunrise, we will feel the warmth melt away the terrors of the night.....But sometimes, are we woodpeckers trying to be metalpeckers? Whether to keep hammering on agents' doors is just a small example, and perhaps of little consequence. But there are more serious examples that come to my mind when I think of how hard we peck at impenetrable goals.

We are in good company. Paul of the Bible before he became a Jesus follower was a rabid Jesus hater and persecuter. He was on a rampage against the Christians, fighting God without even knowing it. And then one day, Jesus appears to him in a blinding light and asks him, "Why are you pecking at metal?"

Well that is what Jesus would have said if Paul were my woodpecker friend. Instead, He asked him, "Is it hard for you to kick against the goads?"
 Goad is not a word you hear all that often, so I looked it up to be sure I knew what Paul was kicking.
Goad:
–noun

1.a stick with a pointed or electrically charged end, for driving cattle, oxen, etc.; prod.

2.anything that pricks or wounds like such a stick.

In other words, what Paul was kicking was hurting him, wounding him, even maybe drawing life sustaining blood. You would think Paul would have had the sense to stop.... but it took being blinded for a few days by Jesus for him to finally recognize he was pecking metal. Blinded....so that he could see. Ironic, isn't it?

But I think the message is a comforting one. Sometimes we are so busily fighting the obvious or trying to be earnestly something we are not.... or finding all kinds of ways to dance around the God who is right in front of our face that we are harming ourselves. We miss the true source of sustenance, joy, and life itself. But God can stop us....He can redirect us if we are willing to pause long enough to hear Him.

As we walked on, we heard the taptaptap resume while the feast of wooden trees waved their limbs all around the woodpecker, beckoning.

Acts 26:13-15 (New International Version)

¹³About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. ¹⁴We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'
 ¹⁵"Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'

Dog in Flight

Autumn is here with enough coolness and breeze that the very best thing about the season is manifest- no mosquitoes!  So I could sit outside again without feeling that I was volunteering for a blood drive. I tied Honeybun to a tree, remembering the time when I had tied her to the porch column and she had ripped it off the porch going after a squirrel. Lucky was loose with his electronic collar, and the three of us were soaking up the warm sun on a crisp day. I was researching helicopters. It was peaceful and quiet.

There were many confusing graphs and equations teaching me about flight, but one really surprised me.
As lift increases so does drag, but the lift increases at a faster rate, which is why airplanes fly.... until a certain point. If the lift is too fast, the drag rises and suddenly the lift line shoots back down. This is called the "stall point." I believe this only applies to lift/drag on an airplane wing, because I know (or think) rockets don't stall. There is of course a rather disturbingly large probability that I am completely misunderstanding what I am reading.

Suddenly there was an exlosion of barking and a whirl of fur and the telltale signs of a little white tail bounding across the lawn. Lucky screeched to a stop when the bunny crossed the electric collar warning zone. Honeybun however, leaped through the air, and conformed her body into the perfect airfoil shape, a tear drop. But then just as her paws almost encircled the little bunny, she reached the end of her rope, and experienced drag of the first degree.

Those opposing forces will get you every time. There is no lift without drag, yin without yang, love without hate, faith without disbelief, etceteras without finite lists....Yet just like Honeybun, we are always surprised when the opposing force slams into us.

When we were reading the Bible story in Mark of the crazy man possessed by demons, we were surprised to see that instead of sending the demons away when Jesus cast them from the poor man, He acquiesced to their request to remain in the area. He let them go into the nearby herd of pigs, who then leaped over a cliff into a lake and drowned.  I don't know about you, but that story makes me scratch my head. There are more than a few weird things in that story. 1.How could Jesus, God Himself, want to talk to demons? 2. How could he accede to the demons request? 3. Why would he let the demons stay in the area instead of casting them far away as was His original intent (Mark tells us that)? 4. Why did they drown the pigs? And this one is the most confusing....5. Since the demons requested where Jesus cast them, He clearly had the power to cast them anywhere. Therefore, He chose to have them remain, ruin the pig farmer's livelihood, and presumably leave the dead pigs in search of new people to torment. Why would He choose to let them stay?

 While I play one on my Blog, I am not a Bible scholar. I love the Bible, I read it daily and I ponder what it means regularly. But this passage disturbs me, I believe, in the same way drag disturbs lift, or that logarithms must have antilogarithms to be useful to the math student. If there is not an opposing force, then there is no free will, there is no choice, there cannot be faith. There has to be a Satan for us to choose God. I despise that this seems to be the case, but I can come to no other conclusion.

Honeybun shook herself off, tried to look dignified, and watched the bushes intently where the bunny had disappeared. Meanwhile, I was studying what aeronautic engineers do to decrease the effects of drag in the stall zone.


Luke 8: 32-39
 ³²A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, and he gave them permission. ³³When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
 ³⁴When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, ³⁵and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ³⁶Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. ³⁷Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
 ³⁸The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹"Return home and tell how much God has done for you."

Terricopters

The mornings are cold again. Leaves are slowly swirling to the ground, and remind me of helicopters. Science Olympiad helicopters. Science Olympiad helicopters that we have thus far been unable to keep aloft for even as long as those pretty leaves drift lazily to earth. But the season is young. In fact, I met with my team for the first time yesterday.

"This," I told them as I held up the helicopter I had made, "Is a rubber powered helicopter. We will start our lesson with why it doesn't work."
"Well that's a cheery opening," said one member, Ben.
"You can learn a lot from mistakes," I explained.
Asherel was burying her head in either dismay.... or laughter.   But I was to have the last laugh. My helicopter flew about 5 seconds. I had them begin our time together by building their own. Neither of theirs flew at all.

"Your homework is to take this home and improve the design so it flies," I told them, "It is an open book test. You may research, consult witch doctors, or find a teacher who actually can teach all about the principles of flight."  Actually, I only said the first part of that statement. I only thought the second part.

"Next, we will discuss wing design and why they help lift the aircraft. Does anyone know what an airplane wing shape is?"
Both team members did and quickly drew one.
"Who can tell me why they are designed this way?"
And then I sat back and took notes. Thank the Good Lord, both kids are smart and resourceful and I should have no trouble reverting to my favorite form of teaching- non-interference. We are hopeful that our rotor blade design might need similar properties to an airplane wing, but I don't need to worry about it because it is also assigned as homework. In my own prep research, I did discover there is an optimal curve/shape of the blade, and that the dynamics of airflow and lift are actually much more complicated than the simple Bernoulli effect I learned about when I was in class with the Wright brothers.

Our biggest hurdle will be that our "motor" (aka rubber band) can't weigh more than 2 grams, and our helicopter should weigh as close to 4 grams as possible. This means it can weigh the equivalent of 6 large paper clips all together. Asherel suggested we just throw a paper clip in the air, as it would stay aloft longer than the helicopters we had just made.

"Next," I said, "Take out paper and a charcoal pencil."
"Why?"
"Because we are going to draw a helicopter."
"Why?"
"Because I am playing to my strengths."
"Mom. you are getting distracted again. This is not an art contest."
"Well ok, spoil sport. I strongly suggest however that we illustrate our flight log. Presentation is everything!"

Ben raised his hand,"Will we at any time build a helicopter that actually flies?"
"I certainly hope so," I answered, "But you realize you get some points for just showing up with a flight log, so we will give that our full effort."

Ok, now for all you folks out there that think my blogs are always the literal truth, I have stretched and exaggerated some of the conversation. But it is true that our helicopters thus far are not heli (towards the sun) but terre (towards the ground.) We have very fine terre-copters and I am confident that we will transistion to heli from terre given enough time.

And who can fail to notice the spiritual analogy here? We are all terre-humans longing to be heli-humans. We want to take flight and soar towards infinity and beyond, to outdistance time and space and find God. But alas, we find ourselves stuck to the ground, our souls bound by mortal flesh and bone and gravity. The wing design I need is actually much less complicated than the airplane. I just need to believe that Jesus asked God to let Him take the punishment I deserve and when a holy righteous God looks at me, He no longer sees how I have separated myself from Him through my sin..... He sees the effects of Jesus' sacrificial love and my soul can then take flight.

Psalm 55:6
⁶ I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
       I would fly away and be at rest-

Old is best

A little known fact is that after sticking to something for 20 years, duct tape turns to gooey tar of such epic proportion that scientists theorize it is what finally did in the dinosaurs. They believe now that La Brea tarpits where the bones of many extinct creatures lie is made up of thousands of rolls of old black duct tape glue. Thus I should have handled the 20 year old duct tape holding the guitar case together more carefully. I won't go into detail about how I finally unstuck my fingers from each other, but suffice it to say that soap, detergent, and Peppermint Schnapps don't work. (To be perfectly scientifically accurate, the dinosaurs would not have been driven to dive into the Duct Tape tarpits if they had not opened their math books to discover that they were to learn about "antilogarithms" even before they had a firm handle on logatrithms themselves. This is a gruesome story for another day.)

Asherel was to have her first official guitar lesson and would use the faithful old Yamaha my dad gave me over 30 years ago. It still sounds great, and was the guitar me, Matthias, and now Asherel learned on. The case is the original case and Arvo had duct-taped the seams holding it together. It had held up like that for 20 years..... longer than the original sewn seams had lasted. But while mangy old gray duct tape cases are fine for boys, girls cannot walk into their first guitar lesson hauling such a travesty.  Hence, while I was removing duct tape cement from my fingers, now glued together like a shovel, Asherel was busily re-duct taping the case with neon green, fresh new tape.  Asherel has shades of my father in her- new activities are sometimes pursued less for the activity itself, and more for all the things one can buy for the activity.
"How old is this guitar?"
"Thirty years or so."
Pregnant silence.
"If you stick with it, and like guitar, we will buy you a new guitar. Be careful with this one. It is precious to me. My dad gave it to me."
Asherel liked the new duct taped case and we marched happily off to her first lesson, secure in the fact that I had been working with her for over a month now on the guitar. We could play 3 songs and had a repertoire of 6 chords, and one strum (up-down up-down up-down....down-up down-up ooops up-down).

The teacher, Lenny, first asked if we knew how to tune a guitar.
"Yes, we use an iPod for that," I answered. I think Asherel was a little embarrassed by this admission.
Lenny had a very expensive gadget with buttons and lights and meters and it was made of metal and chrome.  He cocked an eyebrow over our iPod tuning.
"Have you ever tried that?" I asked. Surprisingly, he had not. He took the guitar from Asherel and did some complicated maneuvers with the expensive gadget.
"Hmmm," he said,  "The iPod did a pretty good job.  So what kind of guitar have we here?"
"A very old one," I conceded, "Over thirty years ago my dad gave it to me."
Lenny did stupendous things with lightning fast fingers and the guitar sweetly sang out.
"Nice guitar," he said, handing it back," And since you know how to tune it with an iPod, we will go on to lesson two." Lesson Two was reading music, which Asherel already knows how to do, so we moved on to Lesson Three. The half hour flew by, and when we sat back in the car, Asherel told me it was fun.

If only antilogarithms were so easy!

My old guitar had performed beautifully and it made me realize anew how richly blessed I have been in my life. So many fond memories, so varied and wonderful decades of experiences, so many cherished old momentos from loved ones....Anders' beloved old "blankie, Matt's orthopedic baby shoes turning his little toes out, Asherel's favorite stuffed toy.... Sometimes old things really are better. Sometimes old truths ring truer. We scurry after so many of the latest and greatest while in a corner of our hearts, often unnoticed, the Ancient of Days gathers dust. Such a simple old remedy of all the ailments of life.
Come to me, all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, He whispers.

Luke 5:38-39 (New International Version)

³⁸No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. ³⁹And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "