The Illusion of Center

It is in our nature to seek center. The center is often the starting point, and middle ground is often the destination. The center is the place which does not move. To live in the center of town is to be near everything, and the middle seat is the optimal viewing position. Most of our sporting events start at half court and our politics are always seeking the moderate vote. Earthquakes begin at the Epicenter and Nuclear Bombs explode at the Hypocenter.

While most of this is true, the point of comfort is untrue. The center moves, it is not constant and stable. Everything moves. We know that people change, technology advances. What is known today is found untrue tomorrow. The Earth spins, the Moon revolves, the Sun travels, the galaxy progresses, and the universe expands. Interestingly, one might seek to find the center of the universe; the epicenter of our reality. Unfortunately, this task is futile. Every point in the universe appears to be the center. Like balls, evenly spaced on an elastic string every point is moving away from every other point in the universe. We are all moving but we all appear to be the only one stopped. We are the center of the universe, and so is everyone else. Strange.

Christians often make the claim that Jesus is the center of the Church, he is the unmoving goal which Christians aspire to. The fighting comes when Christians disagree on where exactly our center is found. Some say He is here, others that He is there. I would argue that Jesus, like everything else in our existence is moving and at the same time at the center. He is the center in a universe which has no center.

When Did I Grow Up?

When did I grow up?

You will have to forgive me, I know I my posts are typically more external and less personal but as I sit in my office next to my daughter I reflect on the issue of adulthood.

It seems like I woke up one day and was all grown up; I suppose that is a normal feeling but I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is that makes me feel the way I do. In an attempt to answer the question I reflect on a time when I certainly was not an adult. High School is like a bad dream at this point, I graduated seven years ago and my life had change dramatically. I drove a $400 car with a $2,000 stereo system. I still smile when I think about setting off car alarms simply by turning up the volume. I ran, constantly and was proud to play on the varsity soccer team. One year we went to State, and that was a big deal. I interned at church; set up classrooms, made flyers and bulletins and occasionally planned events. I preached sermons and taught youth classes about things I had no business talking about.

I certainly did not become an adult when I graduated High School. Sure, I moved 500 miles away for college but I left behind the only real responsibility I had in my job and went to a private Christian school with more rules than a convent and more supervision than death row. I played poker and video games every night, rarely studied and did not work.

Did I become an adult when I sold my beloved stereo to by an engagement ring? I don’t think so, certainly I did a lot of growing up when I got married. Our first year we made almost $10,000, went to school full time and had no time for poker or video games. Still, we never went hungry, and never missed a bill payment. We learned a lot about living with another person, and we learned what it was like to choose to love someone. I would say that the first year of marriage was a growing point, but I’m still not sure we were adults. When there was a problem our default was to ask our parents. We never thought about a Will or 401K. We still attended the oppressive school and lived in a small town cultural bubble.

I think I became an adult sometime after moving to Chicago. We moved to the big city and grew up fast. Every relationship we entered was as an adult, not as kids living at home and not as college students living on Daddy’s dime. We had real rent to pay, insurance to find and a career to begin. I have a real career, in the field for which I earned my degree. I have a Will and a tax guy. We chose to have a child and we are now paying her medical bills. We are learning to eat ethically and making long term plans. I have 5,10, and 20 year goals. I think about school systems, and politics. I care what happens in Egypt, Greece and the North Pole.

So what is adulthood? I don’t know but I think it has something to do with perspective. I think it has more to do with how you view the world than it has to do with how old you are. It has to do with accepting responsibility and standing by your decisions. I think it has to do with living intentionally.

I am not fully grown. I am sure than in 5, 10 and 20 years I will reflect on my mid 20s as I currently reflect on my teens. Adulthood is a process but, for some reason, I feel like an adult today.

A Deconstructionist’s Prayer

Lord, Divine, All that is,

As I swing in the vast abyss of your mind I know you

I feel your energy as I spin through your dream

I pray that you do not awaken

Warmed, filled, and known I float

All that is, you are

The great I Am

The great all that is

You are as I am not

You see as I do not, you live as I do not, you know as I do not

You exist as I do not

Thank you for my fleeting energy

Thank you for my fleeting world

Thank you for my fleeting breath

Thank you for your eternal love

I scream in the darkness

I meditate in the light

I sink in the water and the sky

I am not here and I am not bound

You are

I am not

Thank you

It is true!

Space Mirror

What if we found a reflective surface in space? Follow me on this one – we could see the past.

When you look up at the night sky, you do not see stars as they are now. You are literally looking into the past becuase you are seeing the light that was emitted from the star long ago, it took time to get to your eye. So, if you are looking at our closest star other than the Sun, Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light years away, you are seeing what it looked like 4.2 years ago.  It took the light which you see 4.2 years to get from the star to you.

Everyday we receive new images of objects in space from our telescopes. What if we one of those pictures comes back with a reflection of Earth? If there is something out there that is reflective and it is angled so that the light bounces straight back to Earth we could literally see the past.

If it is 5,000 light years away, we would see what the Earth looked like 10,000 years ago. 5,000 for the light from earth to get to the mirror and 5,000 more for the light to make it back to Earth. If we kept watching it, we would literally watch the past.

Ok, that is all ‘what if’. Admittedly the odds of finding a perfectly reflective object angled exactly right are astronomical, of course so are the possibilities in the massive abyss of space. Here is where the rubber meets the road. We could shoot a mirror into space. Just put it on a path and let it go with no objective to stop or come back.  Due to the rotation of the Earth and its circumnavigation of the Sun we would only get one image per year, when we are in the exact same place.  It would be like watching a time laps of the history of the Earth in reverse. Admittedly, the real benefit would be slow in coming as the mirror starts close and images are of recent events. Generations for now would have the benefit of seeing hundreds and thousands of years in the past.

The faster we made it go, the faster the history would rewind.

Please, somebody tell me what is wrong with this idea! Because I’m totally ready to do it.

 

Everything I Know is Wrong

Do you ever wonder for what it is that you are being prepared?

A strange blend of scientific mindset mixed into a spiritual framework; I didn’t always understand that I had a spiritual framework but it was and is true non-the-less.

As a child I questioned everything. It tended to get me in trouble at school, but I do not regret a single question. Is it enough for someone to tell you that something is? Have they earned the right to profess reality?

Who told Sir Isaac Newton that he had the authority to proclaim the, “Laws of Physics?”

Who told Einstein the he had the authority to balk at them? I’m glad he did, because he found Newton flat wrong. Who will find Einstein “wrong?”

The Church silenced Galileo when he asked questions and the religious leaders did the same to Socrates.

You know that you breathe Oxygen because your elementary school teacher told you so. She knew it because her teacher told her so. Keep counting back until some guy decided it was so. Who gave him the authority to decide we breathe oxygen?

If the Earth wasn’t round, would it change your life?

If time wasn’t flat, would it kill you?

Everything we know is based on the assumption that the people before us got it right. We operate solely within the framework into which we were born. What if somebody was wrong? People are wrong often, right?

Christians tend to get freaked out by change. Change, by definition moves an entity. Deeply rooted objects resist moving, many times, to the point of death. In the circles that I run, reality is questionable. I am a Deconstructionist.

If we seek stability like a tree, we are destined to a ripping, tarring death as the earth beneath our leaves shifts and disappears. Do we rely on the Church: a deeply rooted entity, built on the assumptions of past men? Or do we rely on Christ, the definition of divine perfection, removed from our feeble, fleeting reality.

I am suspended by the knowledge and love of Christ, swinging above the abyss. I am not rooted in this imaginary, energy field we call time and space. Cling to your roots, cling to your traditions, cling to your world; or cling to the God who told you that you are not meant for this life, but for the next!