perspective

Travelling home to Wales for the week-end, I was reminded of the fact that the ideal method of transportation is the train. The clean interior and smooth motion bring an aura of class, despite its relative simplicity. There are neither breathtaking take-offs, nor nauseating sea-sickness. There may be no panoramic view, yet from the train the rolling hills offer their soothing beauty; which ironically goes unobserved from the aircraft. The depth of detail that is overlooked by the aviator in the clouds, may seem inconceivable to the astronaut on the moon. It seems that the brain is incapable of contemplating the micro- and macroscopic simultaneously. Perhaps this is the case for Mother Nature herself, as the Laws of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics appear to govern their respective aspects of her being.

As our eyes focus first on that which is near, then afar; so does our mind. The same way our brain gathers all the individual pictures together to produce a single, coherent view of our surroundings; our brain attempts to conceptualise our knowledge and experiences to a single, consistent truth. The instances in which our explanations fail to agree with each other are most dissatisfying. Although I have been able to accept that there may be no single law or model that can explain every observed phenomenon in nature; I am, as yet, unable to come to terms with a similar discrepancy I have been faced with in my religious experience.

Lee Strobel wrote his book The Case for Faith in response to people such as Charles Templeton, who's loss of faith can be traced to a picture of a woman and her baby child dying because of the lack of rain. How could the loving God that controls the weather let children starve to death when all they needed was some rain? He wouldn't, so this loving God who controlled the weather couldn't possible exist. I have sympathy for this man. I fail to understand how my friends, who claim that God held the rain back until after they had finished the day's street evangelism, do not have a problem with the fact that the very same God let a child in Africa die because the rain he had been praying for, the past month, never came. My religious experience is suffering, not because I do not understand the reasoning behind the doctor's decision I blogged about a few months ago, but because I do not understand how any good doctor could possibly behave as he did.


http://thereflectorblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/life-insurance.html

cornered on the tube

Two men in dark suits stepped into my carridge of the circle line train while I was on my way to volleyball practice. I glanced twice at the second of the two men, trying to make out the writing on the badge he wore on his suit. I could make out "Jesus Christ" in bold white letters on the dark background, but no more. As if noticing my lingering glances he looked at me a couple of times; whilst I desperately tried to look away with a preoccupied frown. The last thing I needed now was for this guy to decide that I was the perfect prey for his outreach program. Desperately, I tried to look calm, as if oblivious to my suroundings with the music from my MP3 player buzzing in my ears. Although I was staring at the tube map, spread across the wall of the carridge I saw him look at me again, out of the corner of my eye. Then it happened, as I had dreaded, he motioned toward me, getting his companion's attention. Discreetly the other man turned his head and shot a glance in my direction; I might not have noticed had he not already been the focus of my attention. I was praying for the train to arrive at my stop, but before I'd even finsished that though, the man took a couple of steps toward me - his intentions were clear. I took the left earplug out of my ear and braced myself for the inevitable "are you saved?"

Instead his asked me "do you play for imperial?" I was caught entirely off guard as I stammered a yes of some sort or other. It turned out that they had been looking in my direction because of my imperial college shorts, kneepad and tyrifjord volleyball klubb jacket with its norwegian logo; one of the two men was norwegian, and the other played volleyball - sometimes things aren't as they seem.