can i bother you for a blip on your radar...?

ladies and gentlemen, i introduce my latest partner in crime...

of God and of beauty...

for those of you who don't know, i have really had it on my heart the last year or two to start writing a book...

i am finally beginning to take steps toward that goal and i am in the beginning phase of writing as of today. a big part of it will be centered around the concept(ion) of beauty and why it exists.

so i just thought that i would get some thoughts/opinions/viewpoints about beauty in general.

so pleas share any thoughts about beauty.

what do you see as beautiful?

what significance does beauty have in your life and how does it benefit you personally?

what is the purpose of beauty in general?

please share your thoughts as i gather mine...

the warmth of a cobalt winter night

Hayden Lake was beautiful tonight...

How it just lay there in it's peaceful slumber. And how it slept under its icy blanket of snow. Lit only by the moonlight and the soft glow of lakeside houses. As I slowly drove by this tri-toned harmonic serenity, I wondered how it could be at such peace with its surroundings, how such simplicity could be so beautiful, and why I couldn't comprehend it. I couldn't even begin to relate with such peace. But still, I felt it.

That's all I needed...

You don't need to understand peace and beauty before you feel it.

Or even need it.

This was a near perfect end to a long and confusing weekend... My drive around the lake was overdue and well needed. After three nights of my mind keeping me awake, constantly replaying past conversations over, and asking questions I have no answers to I am finding it increasingly hard to focus on anything.

Yesterday I woke up at 6 a.m.. Everything was packed and ready to stuff into the back of my car. I had to be headed out the door by 6:30 in order to get to work on time. I threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, caked on another layer of deodorant in attempt to cover up the fact that I wasn't going to shower for the rest of the day, grabbed my snowboard and headed out the door. As I backed out of my icy driveway, I fumbled my way through my iPod and picked the first appealing set of music to drown out my thoughts so I could just wake up already. It was another beautiful winter morning with Canfield Mountain capped with fresh snow, complemented perfectly with the frosted pine trees that followed either side of the road. As they slowly yawned they wondered why the sun never asks for permission to rise at such an inconvenient hour.

I still have no answer for them.

All I knew was that all I had to do was just get through my shift. Then after that there was nothing but time and distance separating me from the soft unblemished snow that would soon be beneath me. By 9:30 a.m. I knew it was going to be a good day when I looked out the window and saw snow falling in front of Java at the intersection of 4th and Sherman. I was off and gone by 2 o'clock straight to my house to change and pick up my brother. I was already gone to my appointment with my wintry therapist before I even woke up that morning. But the day finally came when I would have to bring my brother along...

We finally arrived two hours later and by 4:30 we were sledding away.

The therapy session had officially begun. By the end of our first run I removed my goggles and saw that the sky had cleared up just in time for me to admire the end of the sunset over the Schweitzer’s windy peak. As we waited at the bottom of the bunny hill surrounded by innumerable hordes of small children and beginner skiers who don't even give the slightest hint of concern that they are scraping my snowboard to shreds, I suddenly found myself not caring anymore because I became too occupied by admiring the view from where I stood in line.

The cobalt sky sang in perfect harmony with the moon as it lit up thousands of square miles of endlessly snow covered mountain ranges. I knew that if for no other reason at all, God brought me up here to see this single moment and capture my heart once again.

So tonight while I drove around the lake I had that very moment reliving itself inside my mind.

And then I came around that corner and saw the entire lake suddenly reveal itself in its glorious 11° air right in front of me as if it were waiting for me to just reach out and paint the sky with my fingertips. I slowed to a complete stop to sit and watch the deep blue silence and thought to myself, "This is what will get me to sleep tonight..."

what i learned from albert einstein

i was watching a documentary on the science channel last night about albert einstein... they were talking about his final moments before he died and how he was attempting to prove his greatest work, the "rosetta stone of physics;" the theory of everything. if he were to complete it he would have basically been able to read God's mind through an equation no longer than an inch wide on a sheet of paper. also in doing this he would have proven that quantum physics was not true. 

you see, albert einstein believed that you could predict the movement of something by calculating the factors of things such as the force of gravity, the weight and mass of the object in movement, speed of movement, wind factors, air pressure, etc... and he believed that you could predict the movement of a specified object for all of eternity by an equation.

on the other side of this school of thought is quantum physics.

quantum physics states that there is absolutely no way to predict the movement of something. and that we live in a universe of random events and probability. in theory you could be walking across the street at an intersection and somehow as you are walking you could end up somewhere on mars and then right back on the crosswalk and end up on other side of the street. this kind of scientific philosophy is actually what enabled us to have such advanced technology like transistors and particle accelerators. but albert einstein hated this idea of quantum physics. he said that God would have never created a universe based on a roll of the dice. he stated that the universe that God created was planned and orderly. which he believed meant that everything was perfectly explainable and predictable because the hands of God had planned everything out perfectly. this even brought a great controversy to his own theory of relativity.

but something that hadn't quite yet been conceived was the string theory. which states that in every type of matter in the universe there is a "string" connecting them. meaning that in all matter there is a related "string." physicists don't know what this string is or where it comes from. all they know is that it is a sound wave... and this sound wave is holding all of the universe together.

one day when einstein was lying on his bed working out his equation for the theory of everything and he decided to put his pen and paper down and work on it the next day. unfortunately, he never woke up the next morning. all that was left was a half written on sheet of paper filled with unsolved equations.

albert einstein died with a mind in turmoil and unrest. and had he known about the string theory all the while having knowledge of the way God created this universe through speaking it into existence hey may have found a solution to his equation that has for so long struck up debate and cause much controversy in the scientific world.

as i laid in bed last night this very thought was going through my mind. and then i began to think about how it's not bad to question things... it's not bad to understand things. and most importantly, it's not bad to question things and still not understand them.

because maybe, just maybe in our own lack of understanding we can finally take a break and be able to hear God saying what He's always been saying... "be still and know that I am God." and for the first time in our lives we will be able to be content in knowing that He is the I AM... YHWH... Yahweh...

His Word is the "String" that connects the universe together. His Word is the one constant in this universe that keeps it from decaying into a game of probability . it is comforting to know that He won't leave us to a "roll of the dice" universe that has absolutely no organized structure. yet at the same time is flexible enough to somehow trust us to make our own story from time to time.