September 29, 2007

Unlike my wife Angie, I will forget the little fun things my children say if I don't write them down. I hate to think of how much I have forgotten already.

Today my son said something like, "I can't believe we live in North America" and went on to say that everyone in North America speaks American and that he didn't know that President Bush could take over all the states.

But the funniest thing today was when he asked me if I had ever known any gray people. Puzzled, I found out that he meant the people in black and white TV's, the way people used to be in the future. Now mind you, my son is eight and is very good at math and very much like me in some ways :-)

Another one I want to preserve for posterity comes from a conversation we had while he was taking a batha couple weeks ago. I won't go into the details, but the comment of choice was when he exclaimed, "You mean I'm going to have two?"

Children, that is...

Happy Birthday to Me

It's just after midnight, so I'm 41. Not much to say but 1) it's a prime number and 2) I almost feel middle aged. I don't quite feel middle aged or in my 40's. I don't think I act like someone in their 40's. I used to make a journal entry at least on my birthday, maybe even write a poem. Since I can't sleep, here goes.

The hand moved ere so slow,
I watched; no sound came forth
To mark the swing
Of some imagined pendulum
Between the minutes of each
Creep.

The mix of word and thought
And act, by each assigned
A place and sense
In some imagined frame and thread
Is scarcely more than breath,
Dream.

Kudos to Tom

Different parents are no doubt proud of different things. Today I'm proud of my son Tom for something I'll admit I never thought of. He was making hopscotch blocks with some new sidewalk chalk we discovered. He was numbering the blocks.

My surprise was to find that he had put a 0 and a -1 at the beginning. Then he wanted me to take the blocks in the opposite direction to -20. I didn't think he would know anything about negative numbers in the second grade!

Kudos to my son!

excerpt 3 from chapter 5

“Yes,” Agnew replied. “It’s a very important irrational number for your reality. It is actually the true base of your reality, not 10 like you humans all think, just because you have ten fingers and toes. What surprises me is that there’s a button for it. When you filled in the space beneath the parabola, you for all intents and purposes created the possibility of e.”

excerpt 2 from chapter 5

I pressed it again, and the ellipse got taller. The third time I held the button down and the ellipse grew and grew and grew until I could no longer see the top of it. What I could see looked more and more like a parabola.

chapter 5 excerpt 1

The number (√2-1)/4 appeared within it, and similar isosceles triangles appeared in the other quadrants of the circle. Then smaller isosceles triangles appeared in between those and the arc of the circle. Around and around the triangles appeared with ever smaller triangles to fill the gaps and more and more complicated numbers until finally the entire circle was filled with red, and all that remained was a point in the center and the number π above it.

4 again...

A new button now appeared, with a ∑ on it. I had seen it before, but didn’t know what it stood for.

excerpt 2 from chapter 4

“Yeah, like I was saying, the noumenal part, the part that is in the mind. This is the first half. First we create the categories of this reality. Then we actualize it.”

except from chapter 4

"As it approached straight up at 90 degrees I was afraid I would fall off into oblivion. But there was no gravity here, and it continued to draw until we had a half circle at 180 degrees, and I was completely upside down. Soon I passed 270º and then came full around to 360º, where I started."

excerpt from chapter 3

“Yes, something like that. If you take a piece of paper—or whatever, a stream of energy—grab both ends and give it one twist. Then join the ends together, you have a path than joins a little like a circle. You can run your finger along a path in one direction through all its folds and before you know it you are right back where you started. God has made this reality a little like that.”

Quran Day, 3/2/07

This week I read mostly from chapter 23, before Hajira. Some stuff on those who might deny the afterlife... Reminded me of Sanhedrin 10 in the Mishnah that denies a place in the world to come to those who deny that the Pentateuch teaches resurrection.

Also some other traditions if I wondered were biblical in origin. One story sounded a bit like the rich man and Lazarus parable in Luke. Another passage mentioned the Great Throne and I wondered if Merkabah Jewish mysticism was in the air.

I know Muhammed himself is said to have been illiterate. But I also believe he was surrounded by individuals who were able to write his revelations down and who thus may have had some literary knowledge of things Jewish and Christian. I have been gaining the impression that we see in the Quran a number of traditions that have swirled around, some biblical in origin, some from later Judaism and Christianity, and of course I assume there were a lot of local traditions and variations as well (Iblis?).

Chapter 24 is after Hajira. Some material on wives and in particular on accusations of impropriety. They are fair to the wife, indicating that a man who falsely accuses his wife of impropriety is in big trouble: "Those who calumniate chaste, unwary, believing women are cursed in this world and the Hereafter."

Arabic exercises this week are in recognizing words with shadda, or doubling...

Friday is Quran Day

My reading this week continued in chapter 22. It had both mention of Jew and Christian as groups between which Allah would judge on the day. Yet elsewhere it mentioned Allah defending those who worship him in synagogue and church. Also in this section is a curious statement that God has appointed various ways of worship--by implication including non-Islamic types of worship. The statement, "Allah will judge between you and me on the Day of Judgment" might leave open the door that some Jews and Christians might be accepted even though they worship differently. I'm not sure, but superficially it seems very possible to read it this way.

Some wonderful tortures in store for the damned. ;-) Way more stuff about hell in the Quran than in the Bible! I wonder if some of the Fire imagery and interaction has more in common with the Zeitgeist of Christianity in the 500's more than the New Testament. Since most people today read later church flavors into the Bible, I can see where a person might think that the Quran and Bible are a lot alike on these things.

One curious thing was about sacrifices. I didn't think Muslims sacrificed. But the sacrifice of camels is mentioned. It does say that the flesh doesn't reach heaven.

Also some Ancient House is mentioned whose site was shown to Abraham. I wasn't sure if this was referring to Mecca (which I consider most likely) but wondered if some equated this with the Dome of the Rock.

Found an allusion to the OT--a day with the Lord is as a 1000 years. Also found in 2 Peter 3.

Take this comment: "Whenever we send a messenger or a prophet ... Satan puts obstacles in the way." This is a common Christian way of talking as well in many churches, particularly charismatic churches. But it is not a particularly major New Testament way of talking.

Thursday was Physics Day

I was well pleased with myself yesterday. I have a long project going to understand one equation, Schroedinger's equation. It is an equation related to potential. So I went to a chapter on electric potential, which lead me to review in a chapter on work (W=Fs or more specifically F dot s). I ended up reviewing in the first chapter on vector notation.

The thing that made me happy was when I saw that I was looking at something called a dot product, the words "as opposed to a cross product" came to mind. I smiled, turned the page, and there it was, the cross product.

I don't remember learning these two the first time. I wonder if I understand them better this time than I did twenty-five years ago. But I was happy that somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I remembered something!

Arabic/Quran Day

I've been pronouncing the a sound wrongly and so my click pick for Arabic is wrong. It's a short a as in man.

I'm in chapter 21 this week. Some legends about Abraham and idols, a glimpse of a cosmogony. Lot, Noah are mentioned, David, Solomon, Job, Zachariah and even non-biblical figures (is Dhul Nun Daniel? Probably not). The Virgin Mary may be alluded to or maybe Hannah?

One allusion to Christians, "those who say the Gracious One has taken to himself a son..."

Destroyed cities cannot be revived. Gog and Magog are mentioned. Hell is mentioned way more than in the Bible. The judgment involves a rolling up of the skies (like Hebrews and Psalms). A Book of David is mentioned... Psalms?

The most interesting thing is the end of the chapter. A person confronts an unbeliever and asks them if they will submit to the fact that there is one God. But the person seems allowed to turn away with a rebuke. There is no killing of them here. (written before Hijra)

I barely began chapter 22. It seems like things are much harsher after Hijra. Human creation here.

Physics Day

V(x, t) is a "potential." I assume it is a function relative to location (x) and time (t). This is the task of the day.

Potential is potential energy per unit charge. So usually, V = U/Q0, where U is potential energy and Q0 is a test charge.

This leads me to ask what potential energy is. But I've run out of time. To be continued...

Latin Day

Livy 1.16.4: "Romulus taught them [the Caeninenses] how vain anger is without strength."

How can humans become gods? Principally by becoming immortal. Power is part of the equation as well, I would say. Hercules and Romulus both become gods.

Personal Goals for Semester

The key to good goals is making them attainable. Here are some of my goals for the semester:

1. Read through Hays' The Moral Vision of the NT (14 weeks and 470 pages is about 35 pages a week)
2. 4 verses of Isaiah a day in Hebrew
3. At nights I'm wandering through the first and second books of Livy's History.

We'll see.

Going Crazy

I just post everywhere. Why? Because I'm stuck here at home and unable to go work on something more significant at the office. So what do I do? I post stupid stuff everywhere. So now I'm in the Free Methodist debate in South Michigan. Why? Does it help me? No, it just hurts. Or I send some stupid email to someone at IWU. Why? Because I want stimulation. Give me stimulation. Give me stimulation. I'm here at home with Tom wanting stimulation.

Breathe. OK, I'll go to the kitchen, get a cup of coffee. Go upstairs until Tom wonders where I'm at and I'll work on one of my writing projects. Which one, you ask? I think I'll finish editing my NT in Miniature of Romans. Yeah, that's the ticket. No email, no Asbury. Just write.

Thanks for listening. Hey, maybe I'll check out jobs at the CIA online before I start :-)

Happy 40th

My 40th birthday came and went this week. No biggie. The mood I am in has nothing to do with it, as far as I can tell. Rather it is Asbury that, along with the torrent of usual bills, leaves me feeling meaningless tonight.

We mentioned Hume's fact value problem today in philosophy. There is a logical gap between facts and the significance of those facts (values). So I can tell you things that have happened to me this week. I have taught a mess of classes. I have posted a lot of stuff relative to Asbury seminary's situation. I have talked to the VP of Asbury's board and blah, blah, blah. I am still working on a couple books. I have parents visiting, two step daughters, a son with a sore throat and a daughter full of wishes. I agreed to write a chapter for a book in the next two weeks. Lots more. Facts, facts, facts.

What do any of them mean? What is their significance? What is my significance?

I feel empty tonight. What are the consequences of any of my actions?

Ubi mihi pax est?

1985

There's a song playing on the radio these days about a materialistic woman who must be about 39. She sounds to me like she was the average clueless high schooler who (for her time) thought that if you didn't know or like Wham or Whitesnakes, who were you? Now she's married to a CPA and her kids think she's "uncool."

Well, I didn't know who Whitesnakes were in 1985 and really didn't care. I was more interested in calculus and chemistry. But I also was a typically unfocused male in his late teens who could hardly finish a book.

I've had years of education. But my funnel was so small that I went through it all and caught only the smallest percent of what I've tried to study. After both my MA in classics and my PhD in New Testament, I felt like, "You know, I could really benefit from this program if I were to start it now." 10 years after writing a dissertation on Hebrews, I thought to myself the other day, "You know, I really am somewhat of a scholar on Hebrews."

A late bloomer... all my life I've been. But I think my body is young too, so maybe I'll live a little extra to catch up with some of the quick starts I've been around in my day.

Some might think I've accomplished a lot. I've had articles published in some impressive journals. I've had four books published. I've had Wesleyan significant people introduce me as one of the smartest Wesleyans in the denomination. I teach at a college a lot of Christians would like to get a job at.

But I know who I am, and I've been around the best. And I feel like I've done little with my life or potential.

We all know that no "I" really matters. It just doesn't feel that way.