Poofy Bangs and Contrails

Thursday 12/29/2011 7:36 AM

I left my house for my run this morning a little later than usual and the sun, still below the horizon, was painting a long line of cirrus clouds with its yellow-pink-orange-red palette.  The clouds could be described as linear in shape but there were wisps and tufts projecting from the sides like the poofy bangs of a 1980’s hairdo, providing infinite variety within the cloud formation.  After noting the beautiful colors and patterns I began my run.

Not surprisingly, my mind was soon occupied by mathematics.  I began contemplating how to estimate the time of sunrise and figured that I could determine that time if I knew the altitude of the clouds.  A little trigonometry could help determine the angle of the sun below the horizon and, since the earth turns fifteen degrees per hour, some simple math could reveal the time it would cross the horizon.  I continued running with my back to the cloud formation until I got to my turn around point.  When I ran back toward home I saw that a commercial jet that was traveling parallel to the line of clouds, spewing its contrail in a straight line.  I noted the difference of the jet-made contrail and the line of clouds. In contrast to the clouds, the contrail was perfectly straight with no variance, like line of recruits marching for a drill sergeant in boot camp.

I then thought about the differences between mathematics and physics.  In mathematics points are infinitely small with no dimension while in physics there must always be some extremely small dimension where quantum effects must be considered.  In mathematics, when teaching students to work ‘real world’ problems that involve falling objects you ignore the effects of friction, air resistance, wind speed, etc., and all constants are considered to be either one or zero to simplify calculations.  For example, instead of considering my weight to be 245 pounds I would simply change units and say that my weight is 1 Hugen.  Of course, in the real ‘real world’ those forces of friction, wind speed, units of measure, etc. must be factored in or the calculations are incorrect.  This led me to think about the differences between my way of thinking and God’s way of thinking.  I like things to fit neatly into boxes, marching in lockstep to a given set of simple rules.  In my world, people who do good things would always have good things happen to them and people who do bad things would have bad things happen to them.  If a branch fell out of a tree it would always land on a bad person, never on a good person.  In reality, good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people with what seems to be equal probability.  I want the world to be like math but it more like physics.  I want the world to act like a jet contrail in a nice, straight row but it is more like a cloud with arbitrary wisps and tufts that can’t be contained.  Isaiah 55:8-9 remind me of the truth about God.  “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.  ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”  I want God to behave by my rules but he acts in ways that are totally foreign to me and leave me scratching my head in wonder.

A few minutes later into my run I looked up and there were other contrails of jets that were passing high overhead.  I noticed that the older contrails were beginning to slowly change their shape.  Instead of a being in a nice straight line they were being affected by the jet stream and were being slowly distorted so that they eventually looked more like the clouds, with small wisps and tufts.  The Bible reminds me that God is always at work, molding us into the image of Christ.  Ezekiel 36:25-27 says, “I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”  My cold heart and I want to goosestep with other Christians in unity so that others will be attracted to our nice, predictable, one-dimensional, linear lives.  God wants us to have hearts of flesh that thrive in a multidimensional world with its unpredictable wisps and tufts that defy explanation.  Then he paints us with his grace palette and we reflect his glory rather than our own, so that others are given hope that their disheveled, wispy, tufted lives can become beautiful with the grace of God.  I pray that my grace-colored wisps and tufts will point others to the God of all grace.