I was 9 years old the day I decided God existed. I was on the playground and Daniel H. kicked down a sapling tree and it broke in half. Being the environmentalist that I was, I ran to Ms. Johnson's classroom, grabbed duct tape out of her drawer, and returned to put the tree back together. It was a Friday so I was going to have to wait until Monday to check on my patient. That Monday morning I removed the tape little by little, revealing the sapling's two pieces completely connected. I decided that I had witnessed a miracle. The only one I had ever heard of before this was the birth of my baby sister, and since I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, this tree became the first miracle I believed in.
This morning, I was stopped to fill out a short survey on science as proof against creation. I refused. The gentleman quickly replied, "These are facts, you can't ignore facts. If you want to keep on believing in the invisible that's fine, but it's obviously wrong."
What is it about human nature that requires an answer for everything? Why is believing in the invisible seen as ridiculous? Science gives you answers, physical answers, whether they are right or wrong or interpreted correctly doesn't seem to matter. Still, science can't answer everything; FAITH can.
In my manuscript, Believing Windmills, I use the analogy of the windmills I used to watch on long trips with my family. The wind is in essence invisible until we see what it does, how it flows through the trees and through the windmills. We believe in wind don't we? Faith is believing that what you see is the result of the invisible as well as the physical. Faith is not needing facts to define the world around you.
Next time you pass a windmill, you can use a scientific measure of force and get out of your car to discover what is causing it to move, OR you can just BELIEVE.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
It's been a while,
Mostly I just thought people weren't really reading this, but also I have been very busy!!!
Unfortunately, I had a thought (it happens), and I felt like typing it out and getting it out of my system.
This morning, I read a posting about collecting comments to find the top 20 reasons LA sucks. When I looked at the comments that were being left, 87% of the people had an LA zipcode that left reasons to hate LA. So I got curious, as I usually do, and I googled top reasons I hate living in.... What I found was lots of people hate where they live. I think I went through about 18 pages and then I got the point, we aren't satisfied.
If we are given the free-will to move anywhere we want, why are we all living in places we dislike? I mean in reality nobody forces you to live somewhere. So my question is, do we choose to live in places we hate or do we end up hating places in which we choose to live? and if the latter is true, then why don't we move? Is it an endless cycle that routine contact leads to discovering every negative aspect of something? In social psychology, we learn that the most difficult part of a relationship is from 6 months to 2 years. This is the point in the relationship where negative aspect of the other individual become most apparent and difficult to hide. We don't end every relationship at 2 years because we weigh the good and bad, and sometimes despite imperfection we find reasons to have lasting relationships. Just like people writing about why they hate Minnesota, the Bay area, Miami, small towns, big towns or New York still choose to continue to live there. So maybe what the list should really be is "The things about my town I hate having to deal with just because I love living in it".
No matter where you are from, you can find things about it that aren't good; if there were a perfect town out there it would eventually become so overcrowded that we would hate it for its perfection. The average individual is never satisfied. Instead of writing lists about everything that is great about where they live (I'm sure there are also plenty of those lists though), we choose to focus on negativity. What is it that is inherent in human beings that causes us to want what we don't have and find reasons to discriminate against what we do have. Do we just enjoy complaining?
Unfortunately, I had a thought (it happens), and I felt like typing it out and getting it out of my system.
This morning, I read a posting about collecting comments to find the top 20 reasons LA sucks. When I looked at the comments that were being left, 87% of the people had an LA zipcode that left reasons to hate LA. So I got curious, as I usually do, and I googled top reasons I hate living in.... What I found was lots of people hate where they live. I think I went through about 18 pages and then I got the point, we aren't satisfied.
If we are given the free-will to move anywhere we want, why are we all living in places we dislike? I mean in reality nobody forces you to live somewhere. So my question is, do we choose to live in places we hate or do we end up hating places in which we choose to live? and if the latter is true, then why don't we move? Is it an endless cycle that routine contact leads to discovering every negative aspect of something? In social psychology, we learn that the most difficult part of a relationship is from 6 months to 2 years. This is the point in the relationship where negative aspect of the other individual become most apparent and difficult to hide. We don't end every relationship at 2 years because we weigh the good and bad, and sometimes despite imperfection we find reasons to have lasting relationships. Just like people writing about why they hate Minnesota, the Bay area, Miami, small towns, big towns or New York still choose to continue to live there. So maybe what the list should really be is "The things about my town I hate having to deal with just because I love living in it".
No matter where you are from, you can find things about it that aren't good; if there were a perfect town out there it would eventually become so overcrowded that we would hate it for its perfection. The average individual is never satisfied. Instead of writing lists about everything that is great about where they live (I'm sure there are also plenty of those lists though), we choose to focus on negativity. What is it that is inherent in human beings that causes us to want what we don't have and find reasons to discriminate against what we do have. Do we just enjoy complaining?
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