Claustrotunnel

Every once in a while I think it's healthy to be afraid for your life. Danger gets your heart rate up, provides a brief adrenaline rush and then afterwards a temporary appreciation of life and possibly a change in behaviour. But many times we're afraid of nothing of consequence.

For my part I can think of three times that I thought I might die and four times when I was deathly afraid. Twice I was on the water, once I was underwater and once I was under straw.

I imagine the last one begs an explanation.

We'll have to go back many years to my highschool aftergrad party. We had in the course of the evening ended up at... yup, you guessed it, a farm. And of course like grads all over the world before us we were forced to go through a hay maze.

It's entirely possible that no one wanted to go into this particular hay maze but everyone was doing it.

I should probably explain that this hay maze was not like hay mazes most people are used to at aftergrad parties. This was more like extreme haymazing. The entrance was only about a half meter wide and a half meter high and it was the lone feature in an otherwise featureless wall of the barn. On the other side hay bales were stacked in such a way as to only allow a skinny 17 year-old a few inches to wiggle his way through a long winding tunnel. Our lives were to be trusted to the care and attention of the farm hands who stacked these bales. Stacked in such a precise way that their weight would lock together and provide the strength to retain the integrity of the structure and not..., well, crush us to death.

Honestly, there was no part of me that wanted to climb into that little hole but I was less afraid of dying than being labelled chicken. So I got in line with everyone else. I was to follow "Steve" into the tunnel. Steve's shoes were to provide me with inestimable comfort during the terrifying experience crawling through the black warren.

Now 7 to 10 meters into the maze and in complete darkness Steve's shoes suddenly stopped in front of me.

"Back up", he said. Muffled by the tunnel, his voice sounded far away.

"Huh?"

"Dead end", came the reply

The farm hands had done a great job of making the maze interesting for us. I wonder if they smiled to themselves as they pictured a collection of teenagers stuffed head to toe in this long dead end tunnel. I wonder if they imagined how fun it would be to try and shout to the people crawling into the tunnel behind you pushing up against your feet.

"Back up!", I yelled again, thankful that my voice didn't crack as I wondered if we still had enough oxygen in the tunnel.

Finally the desperate message was passed down the entire line of sweaty teenagers and we began to worm our way backwards. Once Steve reached the fork in the tunnel we started forward again down the other path. At least one other time we took a wrong turn . We thought we had found the exit but our brief happiness was extinguished when we were told that we hadn't, only an opening that had been created by some hungry cows.

Later, and after what seemed an eternity, we emerged from the maze and when we looked back... imagine my surprise when I saw that the roof of the maze was not stacked to the rafters with bales of hay but merely one bale high. And as I contemplated this a bale began to move as one of my peers who had obviously grown tired of his search for the end simply stood up and pushed the bale of hay easily to the side.

"You can just stand up?", I said to myself. "Ahem... I knew that"

Have you ever been afraid of anything that later seemed to be nothing? Did you or someone else just stand up?

Then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by - Job 11:15-16

G.U.T.

Scientists have noted a strange reducing pattern in physics. As each new discovery is unified with another it seems to be trending towards one thing.

Electricity and magnetism were unified in the theory of Electromagnetism. Einstein unified electromagnetism with gravity in his theory of Relativity. Electromagnetism has been unified with Quantum Mechanics in Quantum Electrodynamics and the Weak Force in Electroweak Interaction. Now many physicists believe this is all pointing to one theory...

A "Grand Unified Theory". The theory of everything.

Enter Superstring theory. Two dimensional "strings" operating in eleven dimensions.

Huh?

I don't really get that but it sounds cool.

A greater leap of faith might be that I even have the intelligence to understand it. Well, maybe not me but super-smart scientist type people. To reach out beyond what they can observe they turn to mathematics and as mathematics describes concepts beyond what the human mind can grasp a field of psychology weighs in.

Where science is limited to our 5 senses and our finite intelligence, faith transcends our observations, our minds and even time. Faith alone is a blind guide, empty and weak. Faith set like a compass on God is true and fulfilling.

"No doubt we are hardwired to believe that the universe of our experience cannot be all that there is. This would certainly explain the persistence of religious faith in an apparently unfair world of toil and struggle without obvious purpose." - Hiding in the mirror Lawrence M. Krauss



How can anyone say there is no obvious purpose to this life? Whether we sail through life to our death, war, or peacefully to some distant shore. Our purpose is clear. Who can look around at this world of death and suffering and say there is no obvious purpose?

Yes we are "hardwired" to believe there is more than this, and I know Who hardwired us. He's the sum of everything and He's also the creator of everything. But I don't believe any of us are smart enough to find this out on our own.

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider's web. He leans on his web, but it gives way; he clings to it, but it does not hold.

He is like a well-watered plant in the sunshine, spreading its shoots over the garden; it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks and looks for a place among the stones. But when it is torn from its spot, that place disowns it and says, 'I never saw you.' - Job 8:13-18

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." - 1 Corthinthians 8:6

Of wolf and woman

I recently read this story in a Canadian outdoors magazine.

A woman was looking out her window one frigid winter morning. Her house was in the wilderness and looked out over a partially frozen lake. As she took in the scene she saw six deer carefully crossing the lake to the woods on the far shore. The first five reached the woods safely but the sixth, a doe, was slow making the crossing. Suddenly, she stepped onto a weak part of the ice and fell through. She splashed in the icy water and after some time managed to haul herself out and onto the ice again. Breathless and bloodied she stood still and caught her breath.

A raven circled overhead, landed nearby and began pecking at the blood on the ice. The doe watched in silence when she should've left. That was when a pack of wolves crept out of the woods and headed straight towards her. All alone, her companions long since gone, she was trapped between the them and the water and thin ice behind her. She didn't move.

Three wolves continued to walk slowly towards her while the rest waited on the shore. One wolf broke into a run and chased her back into the water and ended up slipping in as well. Wolf and deer fought to pull themselves out. They both got out but the deer was doubly tired this time. Seeing how worn down the deer was the wolf chased her into the water a second time. When she pulled herself out again she was completely exhausted and barely able to stand. She looked at the wolves and back at the water as if to consider her options. Finally, slowly and purposely she returned into the water one final time.

The wolves waited and watched the water intently but she never surfaced again.

Someone close to me had a daughter who somehow ended up living on the street in Vancouver. After several years she came home and when she did she was unrecognizable as the same person. She was pretty once and she's younger than me but she looks about 25 years older now. It's heartbreaking to see someone get separated from their family straying too close to the thin ice of life. She lived with her dad for awhile and then one day she just up and went back to her old life in the city. The same life that chewed her up and spit her out when her youth and beauty was gone. I wonder what drove her to make the choice to return? Did she feel like the wolves of guilt, shame and addiction were surrounding her and giving her no other option? Did it hold a promise of a numbing death? Was she too tired to fight?

The world outside is cold but I feel much colder sitting at my breakfast table with my hot coffee and slippers watching her fate unfold in the lens of my binoculars.