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eskimojen
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Name: eskimojen
Gender: Female
Interests: talking to strangers on the subway, crosswords, Eastern European history, practical theology
Expertise: screwing up and then saying I'm sorry
Occupation: Pilgrim, alien and exile
Message: message me
Member Since:
4/4/2007
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| A few weeks ago I was sitting on my couch, drinking tea with a
friend. A self-described "unwashed heathen." Tee
hee. Anyway, the subject of the origin of life, the universe and
everything came up (as it inevitably does...) and he asked me point blank why I
believe in Creation. Versus what? I babbled a bit, and I could tell
that he was both unconvinced and maybe a bit amused. Then yesterday as I
was helping my sister study for her upcoming Chemistry final it hit
me--entropy. Well, that in combination with the law of the conservation
of mass-energy. The undisputed laws of physics demand the existence of a
Creator.
Conservation of matter and energy--there is a fixed amount of both matter
and energy in the universe. You can move stuff around, recombine it, blow
it up, etc., but YOU CAN'T MAKE MORE!!! Which begs the question, where
did it all come from in the first place? The only way to answer that
without breaking said undisputed and inviolable law is to admit the existence
of someonething outside of and transcendent to the natural world put it
there. And then there's entropy--the tendency of organized things to
disorganize themselves. I am living proof of entropy. Without
intelligent organizing force exerted on a daily basis, my house pretty much
explodes. Evolution just doesn't make sense. (Macroevolution, I
mean--the progression over billions of years of the universe from nothing to
what we see today...). The energy coming into the system (mostly from the
sun) is not an organizing force. It causes cancer, hurricanes, and those
annoying green spots in your vision. How can a disorganizing force
entering a system that is itself breaking apart effect the evolution of primordial
goo into a giraffe???
Also--energy states. In chemistry, I mean. Electrons absorb and
emit fixed amounts of energy, thus moving between discrete energy
states. If they could move gradually between states, rather than
jumping from one to the next, chemistry as we know it wouldn't work. In
fact, life as we know it would be impossible. Maybe it's just me, but
it's too complicated to be an accident...
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| There was always time for the breaking of difficult news, and one had to wait for one's moment. Men usually let their defences down now and then, and the art of being a successful woman, and beating men at their own game, was to wait your moment. When that moment arrived, you could manipulate a man with very little difficulty. But you had to wait. (p 17)
Oh, the gender wars. *sigh* I reread a short story a few days ago called "The Revolt of Mother" by Mary Willkens Freeman. Briefly, a woman discovers that her husband is building a new barn on the very site where fourty years earlier he promised her their new house would stand. On the day the barn is finished, he goes up north to buy a horse he needs, and "during the next few hours a feat was performed by this simple, pious New England mother which was equal in its way to Wolfe's storming of the Heights of Abraham"--she moves into the barn. His reaction is initially what one would expect: confusion, bewilderment, fear (he thinks she's crazy). But once he realizes how significantly his myopia had been affecting his wife he breaks. "Adoniram was like a fortress whose walls had no active resistance, and went down the instant the right besieging toos were used. 'Why mother,' he said, hoarsely, 'I hadn't no idee you was so set on't as all this comes to.'" We laugh at this stuff because it is true, and we see ourselves in the actions of others. But at the same time, it's kind of sad. "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Hmm. Nobody wins, really. It's days like this I'm really happy to live just me on my own... | | |
| So I happened to call my sister today to wish her a happy 18th birthday. She pretty much immediately burst into tears. It had been a rough morning with my parents, I guess. Rough may be putting it mildly. Caitlin is by no means a perfect kid. But she's a good kid, and our mother has a history of...overreacting. To the dumbest stuff. It frustrates me that there is nothing I can do. When I lived there, I occasionally was able to run a bit of interference, but that is obviously not the ideal long-term solution. When I was a kid I pretty much just tried to figure out what it was that I needed to do to make Mom happy, and did it. I was compliance personified. Caitlin has a better-developed sense of self, and a bit of a temper thrown in (to match her flaming red hair), so compliance is not in her play book. I also find it interesting that my other sister, Patricia, observed that Mom was more calm and well-behaved than normal last night at dinner. I, on the other hand, left dinner pretty much disgusted with the way she was behaving. And now that I think about it, I guess I'm not so surprised that there was an explosion in the home this morning. I don't even know how to pray for my mom anymore. It just makes me angry. I sit down to pray for her, and I am bombarded with all sorts of negative thoughts/emotions that I can't even begin... and then I feel guilty because she's my Mom, and as a good daughter I should... (fill in the blank here). It makes me want to pull back even further, which of course she reads as rejection and just makes the problems worse. Happy 18th birthday, Caitlin! | | |
| This evening a woman came through the drive-thru and ordered a kids' hot chocolate for her son. By the time they'd reached the window he'd talked her into a frappaccino, but by that time I'd already made the hot chocolate. I asked her if she wanted it anyway, since it was already done. She looked at me like I was crazy, and I assured her that it would be free--otherwise I'd have to throw it out. She said that she knew someone she could give it to, and I said something to the effect of, "Here you go. Bless him with it." This is where the conversation got a smitch strange. She asked me if I was into some specific kind of Yoga, and I said "Heavens, no!" Courtney arrived with the yummy blended beverage and then the woman drove away.
I don't know if I have any conclusions per se about all this, exactly. Should I have said something about being a Believer? The conversation didn't really last long enough. It was a kind of weird feeling to be taken for some new-agey pretzel girl. I guess what I take from this whole thing is the observation that people don't expect other people to do nice things for no apparent reason. And it really doesn't take all that much more effort. I just have to be more aware of what's going on around me, and not be so consumed by what I'm doing and what I'm thinking. I go back and forth on what I think about St. Francis of Assisi when he said, "Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words." I think that too often we use this idea as a cop-out, when we are too lazy (or ashamed, afraid, whatever) to engage with people in a meaningful way about God. All the good deeds in the world won't lead someone to the cross. To some guru, maybe, but not to Christ. We need to use words.
But sometimes it's okay to just give some kid a hot chocolate.
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| The one thing I hate about my job is the occasional weird hours--I get a bit nocturnal. And I suppose reading Night is (ironically) not the best way to shut my brain off... Sheesh. | | |
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