Hand dryers

Give me a good old fashioned paper towel any day of the week. Hand Dryers suck. But let me not get ahead of myself. Unduly, that is..

There are points in my life when nothing could be more inconvenient than having to stop what I'm doing in order to take a restroom break. Peanut Gallery Detour: In my younger days, I was that kid who put off making a pitstop until the absolute last possible moment. I was that kid who just didn't have time to take care of business unless in emergency situations (secret time: which is normally to say I pushed my bladder's limits: end of secret time); I was a busy guy. In retrospect, I can see now that I was gravely mistaken concerning my perception of busy. The six, seven, and even eight year old versions of me had no idea what the term "busy" could entail. Regardless, it wasn't a rarity to push myself to the point of frantic panic. I've changed my ways now; promise. :P
With that mild digression out of the way....

Back to hand dryers: Even more aggravating than having to take a bathroom break is having to dry one's hands with an electric hand dryer afterward. I loathe hand dryers; particularly the low air-output type.

As it would happen, just a few minutes ago, I was forced to put down my Bible study in order to take one of said detours, and upon attempting to dry my hands, I was faced with my arch nemesis; a particularly difficult specimen of hand dryer that has an air output analogous to a two year old attempting to blow out her birthday candles, with the heat output that draws certain parallels to the radiant heat of a table top.

Now, the only thing worse than having to wait on your hands to dry underneath such a specimen, is to go about your day with wet hands. So one naturally dries one's hands, in, if I might add, pure and righteous contempt. After conceding to dry one's hands, the temptation is nearly always to rush through the drying process, possibly even leaving with hands only half-dried; a compromise that eliminates "unnecessary" waiting, while also rendering one's hands to a manageable dryness that can be wiped on one's pants if needed. Such was my struggle today, when I feel like I was blessed with a decent analogy. I love those teachable moments when God inserts a wise thought into my head and heart as I'm going about my day. Thank you Lord. :)
So here it is, and then I'm finished; promise. :)

So often our spiritual lives are so analogous to my struggles with hands dyers. Notice here that I'm cautious to label hand dryers as everyone's struggle, as it may just be mine. But then I would feel just silly. If this is indeed a fact, please don't tell me.

Actually, I am going to be über-cautious here as well and label the spirituality as my struggle as well, though I'd hazard a guess it could be your's as well. If it is your's, you know who you are; just nod and keep reading. Ahem.

So often in my life--after getting "wet "in the world, when it comes to the point where I reconvene with the Lord at different parts of the day, be it through need or want--so often I am tempted to either skip or rush the times of refocusing. So often, I am so busy in this life that my times of devotion to Him are short in nature, almost rushed, in the name of carrying about my day that much sooner. In this way, my spiritual life is sometimes analogous with my hand dryer struggles: Just as I want to rush the step of drying my hands after washing them to lessen my down time, sometimes I want to rush the healing from the Father that comes after a day in this world. So often, I do rush this time, much to my future dismay and destruction, and only receive a partial treatment. When I only half-dry my hands, I have to seek other methods of meeting my needs later, none of which meet the same standard (whether it be drying my hands on my pant legs, shaking them dry later, or blowing on them myself). Such is true for my spiritual life as well; when I rush my time of devotion with the Father, I feel, though perhaps slightly restored, as though I'm still lacking in that area of my life, causing me to unwittingly grab for other things in this life to meet those needs, none of which can of do. Here is the point to this:

While the Father's method's of healing our hearts can sometimes be slow or even, in the moment, cumbersome, they are methods that we need desperately (even more so than dry hands). If it takes twenty minutes of prayer, if it takes an hour of reading His word (it often depends on how "wet our hands" are, right?), only after staying for the whole treatment can we be completely restored. The Bible says:

"He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:29-31 KJV)

Whatever your struggle today, wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing or may do, I bid you to take time to refocus on Him, to persevere through Him. This is all we can do, and it should be something we long to do. This is where the analogy breaks down, however: I'm just not going to be able to wait on that hand dryer after stopping for a restroom break. I'll just use germ-X when such break is needed. Speaking of...........

Confessions of a Downward Spiral

I found this this evening in my “unfinished thought” pile. Now may be the time to finish, I should think. I will add commentary, now that I have a bird’s eye view on this:


Life has a way of abruptly changing what we know to be true to stark falsehood. So abrupt are these changes that the aftermath leaves the previously blissful, optimistic person in a state of deflating, demoralizing, morale annihilation.

This was a point in my life about six months ago when I experienced a pain like never before. It is not that I had never experienced pain before, or even that my situation was so terrible—graven as it was. This happening was completely unexpected, and thus painful. This is reflected, here:

Yesterday was one of these occurrences for me. Not to say that everything was going perfectly, but my day was actually going really well. Any cares and worries I had were but faintly present. The coffee was that morning beautifully stark. My friends were present and seemingly content to just hang around and talk with me for a time. Comfortable, I was confident and the whole day seemed to shine like bright neon shoes. It was at this point, that life turned the tables, slowly at first, before roughly jerking them upside down, and downside up.


Haha, I still remember the weight in my stomach that seemed to drop from my throat that refused to swallow. Unguarded, I can still feel the emotion of the moment now.

Frequency and intensity of such happenings seem to differ amongst different people. Still, different people deal with life’s blows in different ways. Some sink into a state of depression comparable to that of a house fly caught in jelly. In other words, they don't, they simply take glee in what their current situation has to offer, and much like a fly caught in sugary life support, this brand of individuals blissfully finds the silver lining. These people are lucky, obviously enjoying yet another silver lining, this time concerning being born with brain defects.

Others crash and burn in the most spectacular manner, waving their arms about wildly and screaming all the way down—needless to say, some take life's strikes less well than others.

Still more of us fall in the category that's somewhere in between to first two. Faced with disaster, the word 'apathy' probably best describes this category's reaction to tough luck, a category which I seem to fall into. We from category number three tend to pull back when life manifests itself into hardship. Our paradigm encompasses the notion that hurt is the product of seeking comfort, and so when we hurt, we pull back.

For hours after the tables turned, I stumbled about my day in a sort of “zombie-like” fashion. Thoughts racing through my mind were ignored. Emotions were put aside. I completely pulled back, not only from family and who-not, but from reason and emotion. It was easier to ignore 'it' than it was to face 'it,' so I did my best to quit thinking. Ironically, as I found out, trying not to think employs a considerable amount of brainpower.

So often, within the climax of our pain, we essentially disown our lives' reasons for joy, making the situation ever graver. We forget the bliss we enjoyed just before, choosing instead to focus solely on our pain we know now. At this point, life’s blow is strengthened, having an effect on our lives that is audaciously more powerful than what life can deal without our help. Life can only push us down the road of misery so far—so often we walk down the road on our own accord.

At this point in my writing, I had stopped writing entirely, and this is where I will pick up and finish. So often, writing helps me work out the details, and reach status of a clear mind—as I write my thoughts down, the task of sorting out emotions and thoughts becomes a task that a mere mortal like me can accomplish. This case was no different, as I realized the erred reasoning that I had owned just paragraphs before. I took in my surroundings:


I was sitting in a small roadside diner, venting through verbs, nouns and antecedents while waiting for a platter of breakfast to arrive at my table. I had a window seat, and to my left my window overlooked a busy highway and an overcast sky that almost gave me a sense of belonging. To my right a small cup of coffee sat, ready for my enjoyment. It was good coffee, stark and almost “romantically”-well-brewed—It was my third cup since my arrival. I took a sip and burnt my tongue; a minor setback to my shifting mindset. I remember sighing, shaking my head.



You see, life is what we make of it. It is a story which we write page by page. Every great story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. More specifically, every good story has a high point, a low point, and an ending where circumstances rearrange themselves for the better.


Additionally, the collective power of all of life’s low-points is astoundingly weak in comparison to the power we're enabled with mindset. In a former paragraph, I remarked that optimists enjoy a silver lining of defective thinking, but I would like to pose a rhetorical question to you:

Who is more dim? The person who resolves to enjoy life even when it hurts or the one who decides to give up on life because it momentarily reeks of sadness?


I remember at this moment, God granted me peace. The realization that this moment was merely a chapter in the story of my life gave me hope and an astonishingly positive outlook to what might be in store in the next chapter…

I finished my coffee, careful not to scald myself this time--no more setbacks in this story. I left soon after and began writing the next paragraph of my life…

A thought on knowledge

Knowledge is not objective. Knowledge, after all, is grouped within the same "container" as our feelings, thoughts, emotions. It is just as easily recalled as experiences of the past, as easily re-experienced as the recollection of the heartache of forbidden love or the hot anger of resentment that sometimes follows. Knowledge, jostled about within our mind, colliding with our other distinguishable "biases" becomes tainted over time to better accustom one's point of view. As a cake left uncovered in a fridge collects the aroma of the neighboring onions, so our knowledge and insight becomes swayed by our personal bias.

Faith

One of the most secure states one can find himself is in a state of understanding. The ability to speak, "I understand," is a reflection of the inner belief in one's ability to comprehend as well as the encompassing grasp on what is preeminent. It is fitting then, that a state of incomprehension is the most uncomfortable state one can find himself. Confusion and chaos are oft uttered within the parameters of a short sentence.

This also decides that the most difficult action to take is an action decided upon faith, without any understanding or grasp upon the circumstances on hand. Saying, "I have faith," can sometimes be uttered from a moment whereas there is no logic, comprehension or understanding of the going-ons of the moment.

This is why faith in Christ is so remarkable, admirable, and truly extraordinary. It comes from a willingness to forget and discard personal logic, knowledge, understanding or anything that we as humans cling to for comfort and a sense of control. It comes from a willingness to leave the proverbial "comfort zone" of ours and instead step out into a world of unknowns. It does not come from understanding or knowing what can happen when He is in your life; rather, it is a reflection of the inner belief in the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of another being.

This is what makes faith so hard. It is fitting then, that to draw near to the One who understands, grasps, comprehends, and knows everything--every feeling, every doubt, every problem, every solution, every life, every death, and all the things that are unfathomable--one must resign to a state of faith.

Unit Circle Cake

Ta-dah! I present to you, my finest creation yet: The Unit Circle, as played by sweet, golden cake and butter-cream frosting :D

Niftily decorated in halloween-ish colors (the season is upon us, y'know), this delight doubles as a symmetrical spiderweb, leaving many-the paranoid observer haunted by the unknown where-abouts of the mathematically-inclined spider that conjured such a masterful web. And for some of you, nothing renders you a milquetoast faster than a good x and y-axis, effectively doubling to its spooky effect :-)

Ooh hoo hoo, so awesome..

Yes, through all four quadrants, those are actual functions of the unit circle including actual radians, degrees, and functions of all major angles between zero and three-hundred sixty degrees! :D

Ah, I love math so, so very much sigh

Trigonometry Identities :D

I. Am. Nerd... Hear me "Nerdspeak" ;-D :-D There is definitely a plethora of "identities" in Trigonometry. For instance (but not confined to), there are the 'Pythagorean Identities', which are basically just numerous variations of the Pythagorean Theory itself, near-endlessly manipulated by the six Trigonometric functions. Then there be the 'Quotient Identities', which are basically the aforementioned functions dividing each other to equal still other seemingly unrelated functions. And then somewhere in there, there's my identity. I so love Math

Icecream with Brian

So I took my brother Brian out for ice-cream after school the other day:

Exiting the yogurt line, our bowls filled with ice-cream, we made our way down to line of toppings; effectively starting the extremely difficult process of choosing between favorites.

Cognizant of the price per ounce, I strategically graced the top of my yogurt with a combination of gummy bears and toasted coconut. Placing my finished product on the scale, I looked down with a sense of pride—I had created a perfect combination of flavors, all for under 6 ounces. I heard Brian place his finished product on the scale and turned my attention to the cashier who was ringing us up—“That will be 12 dollars and 23 cents," she said with a smile. I froze before glancing at the scale and doubletook—
—the scale read 1.6 pounds!
I swiveled my gaze slighty downward and jumped back in shock at the grotesque sight I now beheld:
Sitting on the scale, absolutely dwarfing my bowl ,was a liberal portion of ice-cream large enough to feed three starving teenagers. This bowl, however, was intended for just one teenager—Brian.

I leaned closer and examined his toppings.
"Brian, are those…Fruit Loops?" I asked wearily.
"Yeah!"—he replied buoyantly— “and Captain Crunch!”
I looked down at the bowl again--My goodness! He speaks the truth!

"...and...I guess…those are nerds," I inquired, pointing to the array of colored candy.
"Yep!"
"And...do you suppose you have enough gummy worms on your yogurt?" I asked, referring to the large clump of frozen worms that pointedly intruded the airspace three inches above his bowl's rim.
"...um—

—I didn't wait for his reply—

I sighed and handed the still-smiling cashier my credit card, and watched as she swiped it in a flash of plastic.
Now twelve dollars poorer, I received my card back with a “thank you,” and, after pocketing it, I met my brother's gaze and uttered,

"Brian, you are one darn expensive girlfriend."

I left him in favor of searching for a seat, laughing to myself under my breath. My brother, though undoubtedly unaware of his monetary footprint on my wallet, was hopefully at least vaguely aware of how much he was worth to me:

Absolutely Priceless