Faith and Science

I found myself tonight at MIT. I got sucked into the intellectual side of things, I suppose, though I must say the most appealing part of the place to me was the lovely view of the river. Ah yes, AND the stimulating environment. Ian Hutchinson gave a lovely discourse on the rationalization of faith and science and whether or not they are at odds or not. My date and I concluded that science is a particular area of focus of the larger whole that is religion--that is to say, science is a way of coming to know truth, and much truth can be had by observing things as they are and through repeatable demonstrations that they are so. However, as Emma Darwin wrote to remind her husband Charles, "May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in other things which cannot be proved in the same way, & which if true are likely to be above our comprehension." Or in my words, there are many ways of proving things, not all of which are perceived by the area of our mind that conceives of things along a logical continuum. In fact, as I learned in the Museum of Science last week, one of the largest pieces of our brains is the part that is concerned with things moral, ethical, and religious. It is, in fact, about three times the size of the logical and analytical parts of our brains. So, then, we are meant to observe things as they are, scientifically, as they were, historically, and meant to find out how things will be through other faculties--things which, though they may perhaps not be "proved in the same way," yet they can be felt to "ring true," and to "have a certain authority," to borrow from Professor Hutchinson. And so I conclude again, because of things I have felt even again tonight, that not all things are known, but they can be, based on the laws and the grace of the Lawgiver.

Whew. That's what a night at MIT will do to you.

2.5 miles

So I finally decided today that it was time to get running. I'm doing a half marathon in May. That's like 13 miles. MUCHO running. So today I stepped onto the treadmill in attempt to get my legs back in condition and my knees re-oiled for the journey. Mostly, though, I was amused by the inter-gym interplay. On my left are the musclehead guys impressing the mirror with the enormous amount of metal they can lift up to their chests--repeatedly--and on my right is the married guy who just got off his corporate job and is running away all the stress. In the corner is the girl who's learning what the bench press is for the first time, and then the girl with something to prove who keeps rowing and rowing and rowing on the floor beside me. And then there's me, sometime runner, in my Duke shirt, switching between CNN and the Knicks game. I wonder which category the other workerouters were putting me into? And yet I realize that it doesn't matter--one opinion does, and I can't see others' thoughts nor they mine, so I really shouldn't be deciding what type of a person anybody is anyway. What matters most in the end is not my heart's capacity to endure a long run but its capacity to extend love.

And work today was great--amazing how much better of a mood I'm in when I realize that PMS is the cause of all my woes. Ha! Realizing the cause of things helps me deal with them better. Now if only I could figure out what has caused me to be, as my sister puts it, "eternally weird."

Tonight I also fell asleep on the floor while listening to some lovely guitar playing and singing. Ahhh, bliss. Why is it that every girl is smitten by the guitar and yes, even by "Tears in Heaven"? I've heard it a million times but somehow it still makes me swoon.

I need to go to bed before I faint. Onward....

At the end of the day, you're another day older

Do you ever have days where at the end, you think, 'hmm, I could have just skipped today entirely and my whole life would be completely unaffected'? Well, I have decided not to have those anymore.

And here is a picture from Christmas! These are my friends visiting before we went home for Christmas. Lisa, roommate Leah, me, roommate Blair, Kristy.

Happy New Year to all y'all...may it be filled with love and laughter! I've noticed a lot of people lately wishing for the new year to bring you "nothing but happiness." I have learned that sometimes life is better with a little sadness to help you appreciate the happy, so I will stick with wishing you instead my personal favorites. Love and laughter. :) Happy new year!

nothing left to lose

I am officially bad at blogging. It's not that I don't have thoughts in my brain, or a desire to share them, but it's definitely a culture issue. I have to be retaught how to function socially on the internet. And also I sit in front of a computer all day at work, so my desire to do so at night has been somewhat quelled. I think I will stick some pictures on here soon.

So lately I was thinking about if before we were born we took a course called "Mortal Life Prep." This would be structured similar to mission prep, and, like all good mission prep courses, would have to be taught by someone who's actually been there, done that, so we were probably taught by Heavenly Father, and I bet He's pretty good at it. I think He was because all the time when we learn stuff here that we already learned there, it resonates as true within us, even though there's that veil thing. We probably learned really well there, huh. And then I was thinking, well, not only that, but He sends us people to give us sortof a Mortal Life Survival course, a crash course if you will, for those who have already started, but still need help (i.e., me). So He gives us people that are pretty good at living, who have done it for a while, and have access to some pretty nifty communication with the Experts. In sum, at the end of this thought, I was mad grateful to have prophets, and to be able to listen to them this weekend.

That is the end of the thoughts.

city of words

I just got back from New York City. What a trip! And I mean that in all senses of the word... I loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Apple store, FAO Schwartz, Times Square, the hordes of people swarming in ebbs and flows all over the city... though I realized that I'm a country girl at heart. Gimme those wide open spaces! I ate at Serendipity (yummm, frozen hot chocolate) and went to see a Broadway show and walked and walked and walked...alarmingly unlike the pioneer children, however, I seemed to have no destination. I call it the City of Words because I heard so many from such a broad spectrum--words in different languages, dozens of them, words that were painful to hear, words of welcoming, words sprayed across buildings in effort to affect behavior, words carried by beautiful melodies into the lives of the listeners. Wherever I went, the words were everywhere. Today after church, I curled up in a chair for a while and just enjoyed the quiet. Though I did hear some of the most pleasant words today, and mostly from the mouths of the children in the Harlem Primary at church. Little Lily: "I so really sang loud!" Or Madeline and her cousin Janeesha: "Search-to look for the answer to something. Ponder-to get an idea. Pray-to make it happen." Sometimes the wisest words are those spoken by those who have spent less time speaking. I could learn a lot from that.