Editor’s Note: This post was to appear February 3, 2022, but was delayed.
The recent deluge of snow and ice in our area had us busy shoveling snow and marveling at nature’s power and beauty. Cold temperatures added challenges to our activities, but we did our best to keep positive and definitely active. Our adventures had us out in the elements at all hours of the day and night, which allowed for some great sights in the skies and more than an extra load or two of laundry given all the layers of clothes and rags needed to clean paw-printed floors. As we went about our activities, we noticed the snow with its tiny crystal structures catching our attention more often than not. These little structures gave us much to think about, question, and ponder. We thought we’d share some of our findings in this week’s post.
“Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.” -John Muir
Theme of the Week: Building Thee
Our theme of the week started with the hymns sung in church. Each hymn in the mass acted as a building block of sorts to help solidify the readings’ topics. The hymns included Seek Ye First, Open My Eyes, and Be Not Afraid. These songs are favorites of mine (and many others in the world) and tend to resonate deep in the heart.
Seek Ye First is based on verses from the Gospel of Matthew (6:33, 7:7, and 4:4). The hymn lists the steps required to find what one needs: seek the kingdom of God, ask for God’s forgiveness, and do not live by bread alone, but by God’s word. Open My Eyes asks to open the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the heart to love. These are the steps required to fully accept a life of and in faith. Be Not Afraid lists the many places one travels literally and figuratively in life and what one can expect in crossing the barren desert, but not dying of thirst; wander far though we don’t know the way; speak to foreigners yet be understood; pass through raging waters but not drown; walk amid flames but not be harmed; stand before the powers of the world, yet never be truly alone.
The words and concepts to these hymns stayed in my mind throughout the week, allowing for better perspective when facing the challenges of the weather conditions, work schedule changes, and other life factors. Reflecting on the words not only allowed for a better thought process, but also a bit of reassurance that in time things would be just fine. And honestly, this is how life is no matter what day, week, month, season, or year we are in.
The key to surviving it all is to keep on building the structures of our minds, hearts, bodies, and souls. We do this by exercise of some sort, and sometimes the exercise comes in the form of hard work. Other times, we may find the greatest exercise in the form of rest or relaxation, allowing our entire being to be built up by the process of nature. Most times, it takes a combination of efforts and inputs to achieve the necessary and desired results.
“Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” Warren Buffett
Lesson of the Week: What to Keep
Our lesson of the week actually came to us as more of a question while working through a challenging set of circumstances. We will spare the details, but offer the cliff notes to help make our point. At any given time in life, we have a choice to keep or let go of our notions, ideals, beliefs, expectations, goals, dreams, etc. What we keep often acts as the building blocks to who we become and what we accomplish. If we keep fear and doubt, we deny ourselves the opportunity in the unknown. If we keep an open mind, we have no boundaries save for those of time and space. Granted resources play a factor in any situation and outcome. Options are great, but too many can be more constraining than not enough.
In our case this week, we could try to keep up with our to-do list or let go and let things fall where fate deemed best. While keeping a routine was more appealing to us, we decided to be more flexible and help others first. Though we fell way short on our to do list, we allowed others to move ahead with their own lists. What did this get us in the long run? Well, that is yet to be determined, but we can tell you it allowed for some relationship building and better understanding of our own strengths, talents, limitations, and abilities. Letting go allowed us to find and keep a sense of purpose, which in turn gave us renewed energy and hope. We learned a lot by tearing down pre-conceived notions and routines and building up new ideas and ways to accomplish things.
“Education is all a matter of building bridges.” –Ralph Ellison
Discovery of the Week: Stages to Stories
Our discovery of the week came in a reflection reading about the four stages of spiritual exercise, which was a new concept to us (though we realize in hindsight we—and many others—do these stages subconsciously most days). The stages include reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation.
We thought we’d expand on what we learned a little bit by offering up some life experiences. We all read something at some point of the day. The reading may be in books, online, in communications, or even just looking at what the skies and nature have to offer us. Reading does not have to be of words, but can be of signs like light, rain, clouds, winds, etc. Reading stimulates the mind to some sort of action. This action in turn leads us onward. So with reading, we start building our structure for any given event.
The stimulation from reading has the potential to meditate or at least consider further the topics or questions at hand. Through meditation, consideration, and/or reflection, we form plans, processes, and steps. This adds to our structure and has the potential to allow us to help others build their own structures, and in doing so a relationship is formed. All relationships are built upon something, and often the something is not physical, but rather unseen, such as trust, love, faith, courage, determination, etc.
Building relationships gives us the chance to grow in faith, for often these relationships and their maintenance require some sort of prayer, or spiritual input. The prayers may be said aloud or silent in the heart. No matter the prayer form, it has the power to change us, our situation, and/or those around us. This is where things can get difficult, for now we have this structure being built with moving parts that may or may not be in our control. Hence, the next step of contemplation.
Contemplation can be scary, nerve racking, challenging, and downright draining. However, it can also lead us to paths and opportunities unseen. Along these paths we find addition materials (ideas, concepts, facts, etc.) to help build our structure, which is really our life story. In building our story, we come to find the answers we seek, though the answers and understanding of them may not be immediately known.
“Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements…”-Brian McLaren
Science Lesson of the Week: Let the Numbers Speak
One of our reflection readings this week was about the number pi, which begins with 3.14159 and goes on continuously. Pi has been used for generations to determine the circumference and area of circles. Pi is known as an irrational number, for it cannot be expressed as a fraction.
Other types of numbers include:
- Natural numbers, also known as counting numbers, not including zero (1, 2, 3…)
- Whole numbers, which include all the natural numbers and zero, but are not fractions or include decimals (0, 1, 2, 3…)
- Integers, which include the counting and natural numbers, plus the negative of these numbers (-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3…)
- Rational numbers, which can be expressed as fractions (1/2, 2/3, 5/8,)
All the number types can be used in the formulas that help us decipher how things work or are built. From area to volume, speed to power, wavelength to period, the numbers input to the formulas determine the outcome. In essence, the numbers give voice to otherwise silent aspects of life.
“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live in the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
Words of the Week: Build Peace
Our words of the week from the Daily Word devotional include: World peace, grace, blessing, expectation, free spirit, guidance, and inner peace. In order to have inner peace, we often need guidance for our frees spirit and expectations. This guidance allows for blessings within and around us, given by God’s grace. The combination of these things has the power to lead to world peace. Like many things in life, we must take one part or element and build upon it to get to the next level. The structure build along the way is not only built by us, but for us and others.
May we take the changes encountered in life and build upon them to create new cultures. May our creative building blocks lay a solid foundation, and may the foundation hold and sustain the structure it supports.
Structure
Sparkles all around
Glistening art in folds upon the ground,
Flashing in the sun’s light
As time’s passing takes flight
From the here and now
To the clear about
The revelation coming to be
In every structure running in the sea
Of God’s grace divine
In and through the love of life.
Little snowflakes united as one
As the ice takes the shape it is to come
On the ponds and in the fields,
Casting frost that reveals
Every nook and cranny, crevice and crack
In the brooks to the seas, to the mountains and back,
All part of the structure being built
Through nature’s art and God’s will
So that all may become
Before the rise and fall of the sun.
Sunlight textured across the clouds
As the dawn rises above the ground
Greeting the day to come
In the ways won
By nature’s constant ways
To find the resources unrestrained
Building the structure of the road
That we venture not alone
But rather in the love of the Lord
As life comes to be all the more.
-Lisa A. Wisniewski
A Note of Thanks
Our thanks this week is simply for Gods grace, which allowed us to get through the challenges and building of character we had to go through in order to learn and grow.
-Lisa, Leo, and Lena
Natural Deltas 