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Returning

I've been thinking again, some of it along the lines of the last post.  One of the things I most enjoy about living in Oxford is the walk to work through the fields and parks.  It's a great way to start (and end!) the day - relaxing, thoughtful, quiet.  But recently we've had floods, snow, wind and what with carrying folders of work for marking and study, I've been on the bus nearly every day in the last month.  Today was bright and sunny though, and I was up early, so I walked to work today.  Everything looks like winter.  The marshy meadow that was flooded has now got brown grass and piles of ice and mud through it, the trees are broken and bare, the paths are muddy and frozen; in short, it all looks barren.  But despite the appearances, there's a kind of newness and freshness about it all - an expectancy that says, "Look! It's coming back!  Life is coming again, life is coming back!  No matter what I look like now, life is coming again!"  That was the greatest impression of my whole walk - not the way things are now, but the certainty that the important thing - the green, vital, pure life - was on its way.  When you look at your world, remember that.  Life - real, true, Life is coming back.  Just a thought, K

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Origins of life

If you've had a good holiday recently, I hope you will relate to this.  There are things that we do that can make us happy.  (I really hope you can relate to this!)  Some activities, not necessarily anything huge or amazing, just make us feel like they are our reason - they are what we are here for.  For me, one such activity is time alone with my camera, using that as an excuse to just look at and soak up (sometimes literally) the amazing sights and sounds and space that make up this world we live in.  Teaching is another big one for me.  It makes me exhausted, often voice-less, but I come away feeling that the little tutorial on some obscure aspect of engineering is a part of what gives me life and joy.  Weird, huh! Same again for music.  These are, you understand, things that happen to me that just happen to make me happy.  But the main point about these particular things is the feeling that I am in the right place at the right time doing the right thing - and that feeling of rightness is the real reason I find these activities so special. 

There is another thing that makes me feel that way, and that is when I am conscious of worshipping God.  Doesn't really matter where or with whom - worship is another thing that sparks off that feeling of being right in all possible ways. 

And I think that this is the crux - that those activities that make me happy only do so because, somehow, they do line up with something that is right for me.  The things that give that feeling will probably be different for you.  But worship is right for everyone.  And it's right for everyone all the time.  It is, in the biggest sense, what we are for - by worshipping God we are fulfilling what he made us for.  So I think that it's about time I got away from the feeling that things that happen make me happy, and more towards the knowledge that anywhere, anytime, I can be in that right space just by turning towards God and acknowledging who he really is.  So go ahead and find those things that give you life - that are the right activities for you to be involved in.  They could be anything!  But remember at the same time that the rightness that comes from them is just an echo of the rightness that comes from worship.  Perhaps as I realise this more, I can know that joy more of the time, and not just on holiday.  Just a thought, K

 

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Reaction rates

I've been thinking about reactions.  Not (with apologies to Tim) thrombogenic chemical reactions, but more about our reactions - yours and mine. 

When I was an undergraduate, we had to get summer jobs in engineering workshops.  I worked in Otahuhu Engineering for three months, improving my dexterity in fitting and turning, welding, and avoiding dodgy calendars.  When you start to use big machinery like we had there, it makes all kinds of new and weird noises that you aren't used to.  Some of the noises were horrible (to my untrained ears), although nothing was wrong.  Other noises didn't bother me at all, but made the other guys turn instantly green and rush to shut the machine off.  And so I learnt what was good and what was bad by the reactions of the more experienced people around me. 

We can continue with the engineering theme in a more conceptual manner, because so many measurements are based on reaction.  When you weigh something, you are really measuring the reaction of your scales to the thing that you are weighing.  When you test how strong, or tough, or hard a piece of steel is, you are interested in how that piece of steel reacts to the conditions you subject it to.

I have a feeling that it's the same with us.  Each one of us is a measuring scale, waiting for something to react to.  The way that we react will tell the people around us something about what has happened - this is where my thought started.  What do the people around me learn from my reactions?  Do my reactions convey what I really think is true, or am I guilty of ignoring sounds and symptoms that should have me reaching for the big red stop button?  And what about the other elements of measurement?  Are my reactions calibrated properly - that is, do I show the right kind of magnitude for the stimulus I'm given, or do I over- (or under!) react?  Is there noise in my system - that is, do I react to unimportant things, rather than acting and reacting only on what really matters, and letting insignificant things remain that way? 

The amount that we learn from one another is scary, and the speed and subtlety with which we learn it is even scarier.  So this is my little challenge to myself (and to you, if you'll take it) - think about your reactions.  Think about what you are teaching other people about the world around us, about the God around us, and about yourself, all by how you act.  If you're anything like me, "sorry" will be the only correct initial reaction, though others will follow.

Just a thought,

K

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Buddies

Hey all .. some photos Constantinos took at our research group dinner last night :-)

http://cksmile.googlepages.com/

Go on, guess who's who ...  

k. 

 

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Love is not enough

The one who says that love is enough is wrong twice over.  Wrong not only in his assertion, but wrong more fully in the hypothesis that came before it.  Love enough?  Enough for what?  Just to say ‘enough’ means that there is some greater need which love can fulfil.  But what greater goal is that?  Just as a solution must be greater—that is, superior in some meaningful way—than the problem to which it is applied, so too for the consummation of all such solutions for the accomplishment of one final goal, that goal must be greater than any one of its parts.  But then, is it the tool or the task that is superior?  If the tool is fashioned only so that it might fulfil the task well, then surely the task is higher than the tool; the shape and attributes of the tool depends entirely on the requirements of the task.  But what if the tool were greater than the task, for surely an answer provided evidences a higher intelligence than a question merely posed.  So then, if love were to be enough; as a tool it may be true.  Love could be enough—the tool sufficient—if the task were to create a feeling of companionship or intimacy between two people.  Love could be enough to summon the wayward home, or to prompt the memory of an absent friend.  Enough for that.  But what if, instead, it was a question requiring answer rather than a task requiring duty?  What could the question be that leads us to love?  I don’t know the answer, and neither do I really know the question.  But I do know that to merely say that love is enough is, in itself, insufficient.  There must be something more. 

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Underneath

What you are underneath has a way of showing on the outside.  Have you ever wondered what someone would think of you if they knew exactly what you were really thinking?  Would you be at all uncomfortable at that thought?  Our shape, our demeanour on the outside really comes from what's on the inside.  From the overflow of your heart your mouth speaks.  We may think that we present a good face to the world, but what we really show is a covered-up version of the truths inside - be it good truths or less-than-ideal truths. 

NiagaraRailing_cropped_small.JPG

Even that tried and tested metaphor of a grain of sand becoming a pearl is an example of a great big cover-up.  But a pearl is something beautiful, you say.  Ask the oyster that's in so much pain that it spends hours, days, weeks hiding that bit of sand whether he thinks the pearl is beautiful or not.  Perhaps his perspective would be slightly different from yours.  Sure, the facades we put up can be pretty impressive, but isn't it better not to need them in the first place? 

Most of the time we're scared that if people really saw us as we are, no-one would speak to us ever again.  But there's better news than that.  The amount we hide from others depends on how much we trust them with ourselves.  If we don't trust them to love us anyway, we don't show them more.  As we learn to trust people, we understand that they will love us, and we are safe open up to them.  There's an enormous amount of trust invested in building a transparent relationship.  But what about if someone were to know everything you ever thought or did, when you hadn't chosen to trust them.  If they somehow got behind or through your defenses, and there was nothing you could do about it.  What a weight, what a threat hanging over your head!  Before you despair, there is a happy ending to this little tale. 

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Healing

I've been thinking about healing.  When I was in Germany a couple of weeks back we watched a live feed from two operating theatres; one for a knee replacement and one for an endovascular stent graft.  The knee especially got me thinking.  First of all, it was so barbaric (sorry, no photos for this one!) - this guy banging away with a big hammer, then chopping bits of bone out with a rotary saw, and every time you thought they were joking they pulled out a bigger spiky tool ... (endovascular surgery is just so much more elegant).  Anyway, the delicate bits the surgeon did carefully with a scalpel, and we watched as he scraped away tiny bits of old tissue and left only what was healthy and would heal.  And this second bit is where my train of thought really started.  We rely on healing.  We absolutely take it as given that if we cut flesh, then hold it together, it will - all by itself - merge once more into a whole.  No kind of surgical intervention can work without that presumption. 

Healing could be classified as one of those processes that 'just happens' when the conditions are right; but it's one thing to begin to understand and endeavour to provide those conditions, and quite another to say that we, humans, are the ones doing the healing.  Healing happens because we're built that way - we are built to be alive, and a characterisic of living things is their ability to regenerate, repair, renew.  It's some kind of pride in us humans that puts expected 'natural' (ie: automatic) healing, the intervention of medicine and surgery, and God's unexpected healing into three different boxes, as if they were distinct and exclusive.  But we would not heal at all if healing were not a part of our design.  Give credit where it's due - to the architect!  So this is just a general heads up to notice what goes on around you.  Call it by its proper name, and see where you stand in the great big whole.  Just a thought, K.

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How to rent a house in 30 easy steps:

1) Find one you like

2) Go and see it on the outside (get the wrong house, but like the street anyway ...)

3) Go and see the right one with the house agent.

4) Decide you like it, put down a deposit.

5) Find people to share it with.

6) Hear from the land agent that the owners decided to rent to another couple.

7) Look for other houses.

8) Wait about 6 weeks.

9) Hear from the land agent again - couple's references turned down - conversation ensues:

"Do you still want the house?"

"Yes, but let me talk to the others."

"Others - do we still want the house?" "Yes," "Yes," "Yes" (from someone new) ... and silence from the last one.

10) Look for a final person.

11) Find lots of candidates - Me (send lots of photos) : "Do you want the house?", Them: "Yes,", Agent: "Sorry, we can't let to someone who hasn't seen it in the flesh"

12) Find more candidates, and make times with the agents to see it.  Me:"Do you want the house?", Her (Swiss): "Yes," Agents: "You need to pay the year's rent in advance ..".  Find another person (Polish) - Me: "Do you want the house?", Her: "Yes," Agents: "We don't like getting references for Russians."

13) &^%$*@

14) Get email from Romania from girl who saw the house the first time round. Me: "Do you want the house?", Her: "Yes", Agents: (silence).

15) Write email presenting 4 girls in full time employment and ask to be submitted for the house.  Awat response from agents.

16) Continue with the awaiting thing.

17) Phone the agents just in case the email went astray.  "Sorry, agent #1 has gone on holiday." Bite nails, as two of us are going away at the end of the week.

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Blackberries

I was going to write something a couple of days ago about the blackberries.  On my walk to work there are hedgerows with hundreds and thousands of green blackberries (you know what I mean).  Two days ago I found one that had already turned black, and was out of reach of all but the most agile dogs, so I braved the thorns and picked it.  I ate it all the way home.  A little tart, but YUM!  So I was looking forward to ambling home and tasting all the rest of them once the green turned to black in a couple of weeks.  Then, yesterday morning I found a tractor on the walk to work.  Not just any tractor, but one equipped with some great hedge-trimming-beast of a rear end that was chomping its way through the lovely (albeit very overgrown) hedges!  So much for my plans!  Maybe the moral of this story is that I need to appreciate the little I have now?  You don't know what you have until it's gone?  But I did know, and I did appreciate!  So maybe it's just that I should always remember to stop and eat the blackberries before some dirty great tractor gets there before me.  Ah well.  k.

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Henry in the shower

For a couple of weeks I have had a companion in the bathroom (there is a drought and a heatwave at the moment in the UK, so "Save water, shower with a friend!" and all that).  Anyway, his name is Henry, and he is a spider with a span as big as Maggie's hand (Maggie is 1) who lives in a hole behind the toilet.  Despite my initial efforts to persuade him that there are better places than a hole behind the toilet to live in, he has remained.  Every morning I see him out of his hole next to the loo, and by way of greeting I tap my foot a couple of times, and by way of answer he runs back into his hole.  This worked fine until yesterday morning, when I tapped my foot, he ran out towards me waving frantically.  Not at all the required response - I thought it a little rude, actually.  However, just to teach him manners (perhaps he is a young spider) I reiterated my greeting with an old toothbrush, which had the desired effect.  But I did wonder if perhaps it was getting nearer the time for Henry to move on.  The trouble is that he is so quick, and I don't have a chance to use any other means to convince him of greener pastures.  

Last night when I got home, I got a big surprise.  Not only had my toothbrush tapping failed to teach Henry manners; it seemed to have made them worse!  He had decided to graduate from a hole next to the toilet (I could have told him there were better places for a spider to live) to my bed!  Talk about cheeky!  Enough is enough, and I decided that Henry's Big Moving Day had arrived.

Without wanting to startle him from his precarious (my word, not his) perch on the duvet, I went and got the biggest glass baking dish I could find from the kitchen (after all, he is a very speedy spider) and, together with a big green bit of plastic, gently persuaded him that a trip to the wilderness (aka the rubbish bags outside) was in order.  Apparently it was, and I closed the door before he could argue with me.  Cheap way to win an argument, but it worked on this occasion. So I hope he's ok, and that someone else, somewhere else has a little more luck with his manners. :-) K 

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