Gravity and Secrets

Perhaps the oldest debate is the existence of God.  Does God exist, or not?  Does religion matter in that, or not? What is the nature of God, if He exists?

I doubt that any contribution would make a serious impact on this forever-long debate:  I can't prove God exists, I can't prove God doesn't exist. With those wise words, you could print this and add it to your bookshelf right next to Friedrich Nietzsche.

(That was sarcasm.)

Straight up, I believe in God.
I'm religious.
I'm Christian.
I'm a Mormon.
I'm biased on the subject.

I'm not an idiot, I don't believe in some hypothetical religion because I was spoon-fed through a funnel until I was chalk-full of rote answers and robotic prayers.  I believe because I didn't believe and had to figure it out because for some reason, this question can shake people. Blind faith has its moments, but a lot of times it is balderdash.

I can't see gravity.  I have no idea what causes it, but a quick Google search yielded this result:

All the effects of special relativity, such as the slowing down of clocks and the shrinking of rods follow from the above.  In fact, it is often better to think of some things, such as electromagnetic fields as being four-dimensional objects.  However, the important thing to remember for the moment, is: when you move through space you are compelled to move through time but, when you move through time (which of course you are always doing) you do not have to move through space.

So, what does this have to do with gravity?  It is quite simple!  When a mass is present in the above space-time it distorts it so that whilst it remains true that travelling through space causes you to travel through time, travelling through time now causes you to move (accelerate) through space.  In other words just by existing, you are compelled to move through space - this is gravity.

Really?  You expect me to believe that?  This sounds ridiculous. Yeah, I didn't study this a lot and the source might be unreliable, and maybe Einstein is wrong or only partially correct, and the picture doesn't really explain why people are pulled toward the center of the earth instead of to the poles, and shouldn't that mean that Eskimos and polar bears would be sucked into space, and is this time stuff just clock error, but my point is this: it doesn't matter.  Gravity could be made by a monkey running on a treadmill in the center of the universe and it wouldn't matter.  I know gravity exists because I feel it.

I feel it when I'm walking up the stairs in the dark and think there's a step when there's not.  I feel gravity when I ride a roller coaster and feel like I left my stomach at the top. I feel it when my necklace rests on my chest instead of floating in front of me, when the sheets stay on top of me so I am warm while I sleep, and when I drop my toast butter-side down. We can't see gravity, but we see its effects.

I believe in God because I feel it and I see its effects.  Yes, religious people of all faiths suffer from cancer and heartbreaks and broken shoe laces.  Yes, all people -religious or not, atheist or pagan - have successes and good relationships and have a fulfilling life. But you cannot shake me from knowing I have felt God.  I've felt Him when I've been angry, sad, depressed, embarrassed, ashamed, and happy.

For some reason, believers in God think that the non-believers are less happy. This, of course, lends the correlating belief that believers are more happy.  I believe - and I don't think there is a very good way to scientifically measure this - that a Catholic whose child just got killed by a drunk driver feels every bit of sorrow and grief as an atheist would.  An atheist who just had the best first date can come home just as giddy and and as happy as a Protestant.  But I'm here to tell you I've felt gravity when I've flown and when I've fallen.  Joy and despair have nothing to do with it, for I have felt God at all ends. I've felt Him when I've been angry, sad, depressed, scared, embarrassed, lonely, betrayed, ashamed, and happy. But God feels different because....I guess because it just feels....deeper. Like those emotions are only the outside and at the core of who I am, I am much braver and mightier than I seem on the outside. Deeper because I know my purpose and see the big picture.  Deep like I know a secret.

Ooo! I like the way that sounds!

Yeah, that's it: a secret. (Knowing a secret and keeping a secret are two very different things, by the way.) Secrets like when your parents tell you that you'll be getting a brother or sister, but that you're not allowed to tell anyone yet. Sort of like hiding in a closet in a dark house because in about fourteen seconds you and the others are going to pop out of hiding and yell "SURPRISE" and sing happy birthday and royally surprise the socks right off of that birthday girl. Secrets like knowing that your roommate's boyfriend is going to propose tomorrow and you have a key task of making sure she arrives at the location on time and you are so excited for her but have to pretend like you don't know a thing so you don't spoil her own  excitement.

Knowing God is like knowing a secret: knowing that in just a little while it will all come together and all the details will be understood. Knowing secrets is good like that.

Please Dispose of All Wrapping Thoughtfully

Brendon, bless his heart, has won my heart with Tim Tams. 

 Tim Tams, for those poor souls who have not experienced the joy of a Tim Tam, are cookies (or biscuits, depending on where you are from). They come in packages like this:

They look like this:

Tim Tams are delicious in and of themselves, but what makes these cookies extraordinary is the Tim Tam SLAM!  A Tim Tam Slam is the closest thing to feeling high you can get without actually huffing or injecting yourself.  But if they had a Tim Tam Slam drug in needle form, I might consider taking up the habit.

Direction to Making Your Own Addicting Tim Tam Slam 

1. Buy a package of Tim Tams. (America has only recently started selling them.  Look near the Pepperidge Farm section.)  They are not cheap, but they are worth it.

2. Make a glass of hot chocolate.

3.  Take a cookie and bite two opposing corners.

4.  Using the cookie as a straw, slurp some hot chocolate.

5.  PAY ATTENTION! The second your tongue feels liquid, take two or three more slurps and then shove the cookie in your mouth!  The hot chocolate melts the cookie from the inside out. If you slurp too long your cookie will dissinigrate and that is always tragic. Slamming is not something you should do if you are busy with a heated discussion or simultaneously keeping an eye on the broiler.  This requires all of your attention so you do not loose your cookie to the watery grave of hot chocolate.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 with additional cookies until you feel sick, are out of cookies, or feel too high to continue.

7. Drink the rest of your hot chocolate.

8. Clean up the evidence.

Brendon, that dear lad who won my heart with Tim Tams, left me with a package of said biscuit when he left the country for home in Australia.  Just the other day I finished that package.  Having had reached a state of utter euphoria, I completed step 7 and was about to do step 8 when I read the package.  On the underside there was this logo:

along with a plea in all-caps, so as to exude the most importance: "PLEASE DISPOSE OF ALL WRAPPING THOUGHTFULLY"

The logo along with a plea in all-caps so as to exude the most importance

PLEASE DISPOSE OF ALL WRAPPING THOUGHTFULLY

Thoughtfully. Thoughtfully.  THOUGHTfully. ThoughtFULLY.  Thoughtfully. Thoughtfully.

My last post was about showing our thanks by giving.  I've been thinking about all the things we can give: stuff, time, notes.  Perhaps one of the greatest things we can give someone is a place in our hearts and in our minds; to think of them, to thoughtfully let our memories and gratitude for shared experiences twirl around our daily doings.

"Remember the Lord thy God."  No matter what religion you practice, there is a fairly uniform belief that we cannot repay deity.  The most we can do is try to take on godlike attributes and to turn our hearts and minds to God.  After the gift of life and the atonement, how do you repay God?  You just always remember him. (For you Mormon kids out there, what is prayed each week with the sacrament?...that we may always remember him!)

I see people after death reaps the soul of a loved one.  It is difficult to grieve in such circumstances, but one way people cope is to acknowledge that you can still keep a loved one alive in your thoughts.  It is one thing when someone has died and no longer calls you on your birthday or fills the elevator with a soft scent of perfume.  It is an entirely different death when you no longer remember that deceased friend: when the smell of lavender no longer reminds you of grandma's bathroom, when you shred the memory of seeing a buddy's cold body in a casket, or when you stop writing a friend's birthday on the calendar. 

 Ceasing to be in thoughts, one ceases to be.

Today I made an effort to think of people whenever I threw a wrapper in the trash. I turned a mundane task into a deeply thoughtful form of reverence.  I thought of what a spitfire Grandma Walter was and how she so loved pretty things, her house full of porcelain figurines and tassels.  I pictured Grandpa Walter wiggling his ears while saying the alphabet backwards and us grand kids laughing while futilely trying to wiggle our own ears. I laughed about the dumb things I did in college with my incredible roommates like settle arguements with "nose goes" and handstand contests. When I threw away the post-it note that had long since lost its stick, I remembered high school and my favorite teacher calling for papers to be turned into the box. She would purposefully slow her pace while procrastinating students scribbled a last sentence or two and dove over desks to get it in on time.  

I remembered people both living and dead to keep them living.  At least living in me.

Last week my former roommate brought me frosted sugar cookies. It has been a while since I have seen her. I hate sugar cookies.  

But I don't care about the cookies!  She could have brought me a used toilet full of liver and onions and I would have been just as happy as if she had given me a cheesecake and a new car.  I don't care about what she gifts me!

... I care that she was thinking of me. 

Keep people alive by keeping them in your thoughts.  Let people know you're thinking of them.

Isn't that the Point?

One of the reasons I love the holiday season is because it is a synopsis of the human process.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas come with the respective reminders of greed, gratitude, and giving.  In three short months we learn valuable lessons in getting all you can, being happy with what you got, and gifting to those who don't got what you got.

Halloween is a time we can pretend we aren't who we are.  We get to reward all the nights we've envied others' lifestyles and wished we were them. We can pretend to be the superhero, ballerina, political figure, or crazy scientist we've always dreamt we were, but never became. We can gluttonously collect candy and throw big parties so lots of people can pretend they're something they're not together.  November follows and always spurs conversations of "what are you thankful for?" December becomes a time to make lists of what could possibly make someone else smile when wrapping paper is ripped away and your gift is revealed. 

I'm just that kind of person: the kind that gets involved with the holiday spirit to the same extent Sarah Palin gets involved with the Tea Party or Budweiser gets involved with the Super Bowl. I start counting down for Christmas in September.  I plan my Halloween costumes a month or year in advance.  My brothers and sister, also holiday enthusiasts, abide by a lofty moral code of conduct when it comes to trick-or-treating.  There are a lot of people who will tell you that my devout support of Halloween means I like to worship the dead or speak with spirits.  But that's not it.  I love Halloween because instead of being judged by how thin or beautiful you are, you are judged by ingenuity and wit.  We compliment people who have innovative costumes, who are dressed as a pun or cliche.  I'm one to believe that when you create something, you come closer to God.  Creating a costume - either by sewing, assembling, or accessorizing - is a form of God's powers of creation.

Aaaaaaand Halloween is the one day every year you can dress up with your underwear on the outside, knock on a door, demand candy, and actually end up with a booty load of candy instead of  a ride in a police car. 

 Last year was the first Halloween of my life I didn't go trick-or-treating. 

 I was 22.

This year my dad had a brilliant idea.  Beyond brilliant, some would say.  I had just gotten home from a Friday night costume party.  I had removed my wig and sat down to unload all the stories about the day. With my face still pained with a classic clown smile and blue eyebrows, my father started showing me the elements to his costume. "Here's my mohawk.  I bought a soul-patch to go with my blag mohawk. I'm going to roll a pack of cigarettes up my sleeve...And I think we should go treat-or-tricking. It's the opposite of trick-or-treating.  You give candy instead of collecting candy."

What a novel idea.  Giving.  Giving in a season of greed and gluttony. I am a little ashamed we hadn't thought of this before. 

We dressed up on Halloween night: a recent college graduate as a clown and her over-the-hill-plus-a-decade daddy as a biker.  We took a bag of candy, and handed out chocolate bars at houses instead of collecting.

We made so many people smile, especially the parents without costume who dutifully chug along house to house to supervise adorable princesses and vampires for the holiday spirit.  Those parents don't make so much in candy revenue. I'm glad we were able to spread some of the Halloween cheer.

Isn't my dad cool?

So this Halloween was about giving. 

We once had one of the Ashtons come speak to one of my nonprofit organization classes in college. The Ashtons are a filthy rich and well-known family and happen to be unashamedly generous with their money.  Their name is on many a bench and building in the state of Utah. Each year they give grant after to grant to nonprofit organizations. They are most known for Thanksgiving Point, which is a puge entertainment, education, and recreation zone. (puge = pretty +  huge)  This place has magnificent gardens, invites schools to visit their farm country, keeps their dinosaur museum well maintained, shows current films at the theater, and teaches classes on baking and glass art.

The speaker mentioned that most people think the name "Thanksgiving Point" is because it is located at the point of the mount (a consistent landmark in approximating distances for anyone who travels between Utah and Salt Lake counties) and speculate that the Ashtons love the Thanksgiving holiday. 

"So...isn't that why you named it Thanksgiving Point?"  a classmate asked, confused at what else could possibly be an explanation for such a name.

 "No," the speaker responded, "It's because we show our thanks by giving.  And that's the point."

It is now officially the month of November: the month of Thanksgiving.  To celebrate Thanksgiving throughout the month, I'm aiming to get into the Christmas spirit and show my thanks by giving.

Isn't that the point?