joyetc's Xanga

Asking the wrong questions

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:47:31 GMT

I met a girl at my sister-in-law's birthday party on Sunday... we got to talking, and she asked me if I was very religious. The question made me pause -- I immediately thought of those cheeseball "I'm not religious, I just love the Lord!" bumper stickers, but that's not an easy thing to explain. I ended up mumbling something about how what I believe is not so much a matter of going through certain religious practices as it is about having a personal relationship with God.

This morning it dawned on me that she was really asking the wrong question.

It would be like going up to a man who is carrying home flowers for his wife and asking him if he was very romantic. Yes, he is, but he's only romantic because he loves his wife. The romance -- i.e., the bouquet -- is a natural result of his love for her. The better question would be to ask him why he loves his wife so much. And yet, when we see a man carrying flowers... or a Christian doing something good... we think immediately of how romantic/religious they are.

I wonder why it is so easy for us to miss the point?

Know where your towel is

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:59:14 GMT

Today's devotion in My Utmost for His Highest reminded me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Funny how God uses things -- even books written by "radical atheists" like Douglas Adams -- to teach us about Himself.

"If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. John 13:14

...The things that Jesus did were of the most menial and commonplace order, and this is an indication that it takes all God's power in me to do the most commonplace things in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels and dishes and sandals, all the ordinary sordid things of our lives, reveal more quickly than anything what we are made of. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty as it ought to be done..."

So... do you know where your "towel" is?

It's the end of the world as we know it! (But I feel fine!)

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:15:38 GMT

Well, gang, they fired up the Large Hadron Collider in the wee hours of the morning -- and the world still exists! Of course, they've only tried it in one direction at a time, so there has not yet been any smashing of sub-atomic particles which could theoretically create miniature black holes and cause our general demise. That will come later.

Oh, yeah... the scientists who built this thing also made their own particle physics rap music video. You really gotta see this!

Hrvatska (that's Croatia in Croatian, for you Americans)

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:45:00 GMT

Plitvička Jezera & Zagreb road trip -- Croatia, July 2008

Just a few of our pictures -- and yes, it was awesome.

Juneteenth Musings

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:13:38 GMT

According to my desk calendar, today is Juneteenth. According to Wikipedia, Juneteenth is Emancipation day (end of slavery), but only in Texas and a bit of Arkansas. I'm not sure why slaves in the other states don't get celebrated.... most peculiar.

And now for my musings. They are theological in nature and have not been thoroughly researched yet, so they could be heresy. If nothing else, they've made me revisit some concepts I thought I understood completely... and that's always a good thing.

1. Forgiveness is like flow cytometry.

We were talking about the "forgive and forget" idea at Bible study on Tuesday, and it occurred to me that the forgetting part might not be quite complete. God promises in Jer. 31:34 "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." But in other places (Hosea for sure), God recounts past sins of the Israelites (all their stupidity in the desert with the golden calf, etc.) as He's calling for them to repent. So it seems like He still "remembers" their sins.

This is where my flow cytometry analogy comes in. It might get a tad technical, so bear with me. Flow cytometry is a really cool way of getting data on individual cells in a sample. To do flow cytometry, you need an expensive instrument called a flow cytometer, which my company is beginning to sell. I've spent the last month or so writing marketing materials for them, so I have a pretty good idea about how they work. Part of the process requires some nifty software to plot your data, which is crucial. Suppose you have three data points which, if you were playing connect-the-dots, would make a triangle. You can't exactly draw a straight line that goes through all of them, right? If you found out that one of those points was a mistake, though, you could draw a line through the other two. That's where the software comes in -- it helps you determine which points aren't relevant, so you can ignore them and use the good data.

Still with me? I think forgiveness is like that... maybe... when God (or us, forgiving eachother) "forgives and forgets" our sins, it's not that He's actually forgetting (how can He be omnicient if He doesn't remember something?), but he's not taking them into account. They're the data points that get ignored -- He knows they're there, but he chooses to disregard them and treat the rest of the data (us?) as if the bad parts/datapoints/sins don't exist.

Just a theory...

2. God talks to us when we pay attention to Him.

Part of my research into musing # 1 took me back to Exodus, and I decided to take on the challenge of re-reading the whole book. There's some good stuff there!

Exhibit A:

"Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses! And he said, Here I am." - Exodus 3, italics mine.

Can you imagine what the story would have been like if Moses went blithely right on past with his sheep? Makes me wonder how often God has put "burning bushes" in my life that I've ignored... and we complain that God doesn't talk to us!

3. God is not named after anything.

Names are important. Somehow, they give us power, even in this modern age. My mother-in-law has been sick for the past six months or so, and the doctors can't figure it out. Obviously, I want them to be able to treat her, but somehow knowing what she has, even if they can't fix it, would make things better. She'd be suffering from a known disease, something that scientists have studied and pinned down in neat latin phrases, instead of this nameless pain.

That's another thing. Have you noticed that most names have meaning? That everything is named after something? Many of the people in the Bible have God-names: God Redeems, God Saves, God Hurls, God Loves... but when it comes to God himself, things change.

"God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, Say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, Say this to the people of Israel, The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. " Exodus 3: 14-15

The footnotes in my Bible tell me that "LORD" is the translation for YHWH, which is related to the verb "to be" -- and the first person present tense of that is "I am." Get it? God isn't named after anyone. His name is a verb. He just is. Trippy, huh?

Spokane

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:56:47 GMT

Hubby and I flew up this past weekend to visit my dad -- see some of our trip highlights here

By the way, it's pronounced Spo-CAN, not SPOKE-ann.

What do they teach them in these schools? (Or, why a diploma does not impart wisdom)

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:22:44 GMT

I'm really beginning to wonder if critical thinking ought to be added to the list of endangered species, er, skills. I find myself echoing the Professor from C.S. Lewis' Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe quite often in his disdain for modern education.

Clearly, it's not working as it should.

Don't even get me started on standardized testing, social passing, teacher's unions, and all the rest... let's just stick to critical thinking skills for now.

Exhibit A: Approximately one month ago, while reading the chapter on miracles in Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity, I discovered a quote that was very familiar to me. It was by the "father of empiricism," philosopher David Hume, and was the exact same one that I had used for the same purpose in my senior thesis three years before the book was published. While it is very gratifying to know that my thought patterns mimic those of a New York Times bestselling author, I'm also a little worried that someone with only two classes in philosophy (i.e. me) could come to the same conclusions as such a prominent thinker... completely on my own. So perhaps formal education is less than it is cracked up to be.

Exhibit B: Expelled. It was with great joy and great trepidation that I went to see this on opening night (in, by the way, a very packed theater). While I give it props for being both funny (and therefore accessible to the masses) and intellectual (and therefore deserving some serious consideration), I was disappointed in its missed opportunities. It could have been a much better spark for debate across religious boundaries if it hadn't catered quite so much to the Christian fundamentalist crowd (which I am acknowledgably part of). It would have been much wiser (critical thinking anyone?) to have not "expelled" athesists from screenings. But the thing that disappointed me most was how much time they spent on the Nazi/evolution link. While I think no sensible historian would deny that the link exists (if I remember correctly, the issue was raised several times at the National Holocaust Museum in D.C.), I think it was overused... to the detriment of other things which should have had more screentime. Like philosophy. Will no one admit that this whole science/religion issue comes down to a philosophical question about what science is? It's not like it's news... the problems trace back to thinkers in the 1830s and again in the 1920s... and got thoroughly debunked in the 1960s... Ugh.

Exhibit C: An article published yesterday in the New York Times about Dr. Francisco Ayala, UCI professor, genetecist, public speaker, and former Dominican priest. In the middle of an article about how he believes the science/religion issue can be resolved, he comes out with the most illogical explanation for the problem of evil that I have ever heard. (For the uninitiatied, problem of evil = if evil exists, then God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing, or all-good). Citing things like spontaneous abortion and insects that cannibalize their mates, Dr. Ayala says that if God created these things, then "he is a sadist, he certainly does odd things and he is a lousy engineer." Ok, granted, that's essentially the problem of evil. But his solution is what gets me: evolution "is more consistent with belief in a personal god than intelligent design....dysfunctions and diseases were a consequence of the evolution of life. They were not a result of a deficient or malevolent design." Ok, let's think about this... essentially, he's saying that evolution is a handy scapegoat for the evil that God allows. But wait -- if God is omnicient and omnipotent (and, if he's talking about a "personal God," he's probably talking about the Christian God, who is), then He would have, in some sense, engineered evolution. Which means that, by Dr. Ayala's elegant reasoning, God is the cosmic bad guy by proxy. So much for solving the problem of evil... I personally prefer the theological solution (evil is a result of the Fall and God allowing us to have free will). And, once again, my little B.A. brain trumps a world-reknowned PhD.

I'm reminded once again of the first chapter of I Corinthians... "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (v. 20).

And, before I get too carried away by my own foolish brilliance... "God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." (v. 28-31)

May all praise be to the One who gave me a brain and the skills to use it.

Quotes (because sometimes it's better to borrow words)

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:53:12 GMT

"And then Gogol said, with the absolute simplicity of a child-- 'I wish I knew why I was hurt so much.'" - G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

"Your destiny should not be determined by your geography..." - radio announcer yesterday on AirOne.

"When it feels like my dreams are so far / Sing to me of the plans that You have for me over again..." - Switchfoot, "Only Hope"

"...And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England."
-T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," Four Quartets

"If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God." - Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Snowdrops

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:56:45 GMT

God brought me flowers last night.

That's the only way I can really explain it. I went to Trader Joe's to pick up milk, and there they were. Snowdrops. I couldn't believe it. In Oxford, they were the first flowers to bloom in the spring. I've tried to find them in the five years since, but I never succeeded -- until yesterday.

When I got back to my car, I started to cry. It was the timing that got me. Yesterday was exactly one week after I found out that I will not be able to go to the UK for graduate school next year... and quite possibly never.

I still don't know why God has given me these desires -- a passion for philosophy of science, a longing for rain and the slow rhythm of the seasons, a dream of a country where the very earth is steeped in history and colleges founded in the 1200s are still called "new" -- and then thwarted them at every turn.

But God knows. I can't help but see the snowdrops as a gift especially for me -- a tender reminder of His wisdom and the excellence of His plans.

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt." Hosea 2:14-15

"For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." Jeremiah 29:10-14

Thwarted

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:56:33 GMT

"May all your expectations be frustrated,
may all your plans be thwarted,
may all your desires be withered into nothingness,
that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child
and sing and dance in the love of God,
who is Father, Son, and Spirit."

~Larry Hem

...later...

When one cannot go to England, one can at least have proper British tea (with cream and sugar, of course), made in a proper Brown Betty teapot with a brand-new, specially-designed, home-made tea cosy with a hand-stitched Lewis quote on it -- and of course a few Hob Nobs to nibble on.