If any of my math teachers had ever told me you could do THIS with math, I might have paid more attention in math class.
Amazing stuff. It reminds me of fractals, but I don’t know what the mathematical relationship is between the two. Click on the pictures if you want to read more.
It’s still surprising to me that something that happened 12 years ago can still evoke the same sense of wonder now that it did then. It was right before Christmas, December 17th to be exact, that God suddenly showed up in my life again after a long absence. To this day, I can’t listen to the familiar hymns of Christmas without reliving those first weeks of hearing the words for what seemed like the first time and realizing bit by bit that this was no fairy story as I had long believed, but it had really happened.
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!
The new-born King? King? I’ve been treating him like dirt my entire life . . .
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
I remember attending a performance of The Marriage of Figgaro in about 1985. The music was wonderful, but the opera part wasn’t doing a whole lot for me, mostly because it was in another language. Somewhere toward the end, though, everything changed as the music alone just reached right into my soul and pierced all the way through to something I didn’t even know existed. Suddenly my eyes were full of tears and I just wanted . . . . There were no words for what I wanted, but that haunting sense of longing for something I couldn’t even name never really left. What I wanted then, and wandered lost for another dozen years trying to find was what this song talks about – reconcilliation with God.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
I have to admit, I was pretty content with the idea of being worm food after I “passed on.” No need to get all worried about hell or anything nasty like that. All of the sudden, though, the idea of eternity started to make its way into my consciousness.
Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
There’s that King thing again. What have I been doing all my life?
He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of His righteousness,
and wonders of His love,
How can righteousness and love go together in the same sentence?
Oh holy night!
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
A thrill of hope . . . Is that what’s stirring around in my soul? Hope? Why would that be so thrilling about hope to an optimist like me? But it was.
Fall on your knees
Fall on my knees? Is that what I need to do?
What child is this, who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap, is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
Haste, haste to bring him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary!
Haste! Haste! All my life I’ve been running as far and as fast away from this Babe as I can. Lots of ground to cover back in the other direction. Haste! Haste!
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him,
Born the King of angels;
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O Come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
Come and behold him . . . O come, let us adore him. This is what gets me. The instant the Christian radio station came on in my car that December day, I knew it was Him that did it, and I knew that what I really deserved was to be squashed like a bug for the many and various ways I had, often deliberately, rebelled against my maker. And yet . . . I knew that this was also someone who loved me enough to bring my headlong rush to destruction to a screeching halt. I have to adore someone like that. I MUST find out who he is and what’s next.
Begotten, not created;
This is God I’m dealing with — no longer a figment. Figments don’t make things happen in the “real” world.
Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
Born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh appearing
I still relish those words – “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.” When we did the John study, I thought for sure since I was getting a 3-month head start that I would have the questions all done before we started. Little did I know that I would spend the next three months exploring that one Word that John confronts us with right at the beginning of his Gospel. What a marvellous thing God has done to appear in flesh for us. What amazed and astounded me and still thrills my soul is that except for the flesh part, Jesus is the same Word of God that we see all through the Scriptures. I didnd’t know that then. I just knew it was an incredible thing that I hadn’t even begun to get my mind around. Like dipping my little toe into an infinite ocean and sensing the raw power of the thing even though I’ve only touched the edge of it. Twelve years later, I still get that feeling that I’ve only touched the edge of that great ocean.
While I still suspect that we might be off a month or two on the actual date (check out when Zachariah was actually serving in the temple and do a little math . . . .), and I’m positive that most of the trappings of the season are purely pagan in origin, I love the songs, and I love that God stepped into my life just when these songs were being played on the radio, in the stores, and everywhere – all the time. No wonder atheists get irritated this time of year.
Reading another article at SciAm today – The Moral Call of the Wild: A study suggests that spending time in nature changes our values. The basic gist of the article is a new study has “shown” (I’d have to see more about the structure and methodology of the study to remove the quotes) that people who spend more time in the natural world are more other-focused and less self-focused. They suggest that the trend of our society spending less and less time outside with the birds and bees over the last 30 or 40 years is correlated with us becoming more and more self-focused, and that time spent in nature actually changes our values. Interesting concept.
I’ve always loved being outside. For a time in my teens and 20s, I would get distinctly anxious if I couldn’t spend enough time in the outdoors. I still get mildly depressed in the winter when the light level drops and bounce back again in the spring, but the angst I used to experience has gone away since I became a Christian. What I really found interesting about the article, though, was one of the comments by “Babbin” –
Since when is caring about others more important than caring about yourself?
Wow! Like since the whole of recorded history, dude!
When I decided to officially embrace atheism just after high school, I did my own unofficial comparative religion study (I would do this again later, officially, in college which simply confirmed the conclusions I had come to a decade earlier in my unofficial study). As a result of that study, I concluded that all religion was the result of man trying to explain the unexplainable, and the the various rules and regulations that each of them came up with were what gave society its stability and structure, but there was really no absolute moral right or moral wrong. (Of course, that doesn’t explain the GUT WRENCHING when you hear about a man putting his girlfriend’s kids into a pot of boiling water on the stove.) Also as a result of that study, I adopted as my personal “standard” the one “rule” that seemed to show up everywhere I looked – The Golden Rule – don’t do to anyone else what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.
Oh, wait! That’s not it! The way Jesus put it is a little different. He said –
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
There’s actually quite a bit of difference between the passive version, which a lot of religions have codified – don’t do – and the active version found in Christianity – DO – take the first step – don’t wait for someone else to act first – it’s up to you.
Funny that even though I only had one rule I felt obligated to try and keep, I couldn’t even keep that rule. Why? Because I spent way more time caring about myself than I ever did caring about anyone else. In the last 10 years of walkling with Christ, I’ve found out that there’s only one way to keep that one rule – care more about others than you do about yourself. And the only way I can consistently care more about others than I do about myself is when I care about God first. Jesus said that if we kept those 2 rules – Love God, Love People – we would fulfill ALL the rest.
Reminds me of the song we used to sing in Sunday School when I was a kid:
Jesus and Others and You;
What a wonderful way to spell joy . . .
I hope Babbin discovers that bit of truth someday. Now do like your mom said – Go out and play.
