My Best Bedlam Memory (So Far)

Everybody surrounding these two programs has a Bedlam memory or two that sticks out in their minds. Mostly for the Cowboys they're of the, "I should get a medal for coming back after what happened last year" variety. Lord knows I've heard my dad tell me about that freakin' onside kick in 1983 a million times. For some guys I work with, it's the dropped game-winner in 1988. I've had a couple of Bedlam memories through the years worth holding onto. Crammed sideways in the back seat of Marc Shook's Trans Am (maybe a Firebird) from Stillwater to Norman our freshman year, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way from Moore with a full bladder, only to end the day rushing Owen Field after a 30-7 victory would be my second best.

My best memory came in 2001.

I was a senior in architecture school, and college had just about finished beating me down. Oh, and I remember trying to present a design crit at about 1:00pm on 9/11/01. The only good thing I had going for me was my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, helping me to hold onto my sanity. Barely. If you've never heard about OSU Architecture, suffice it to say that we've seen more sunrises after through-the-night charrette sessions than all the other undergrads on campus...combined! I didn't get to see many football games that year. I'd like to say it was because I was working hard on my senior design project, which is mostly true, but it really came down to what I thought was going to be the last live game I would ever stomach the heartache of living through. That year we lost to Missouri 41-38 in triple overtime (we lost to them 51-50 in double overtime my freshman year). At that point a said to heck with it, I'm never subjecting myself to that again. Well, something like that anyway.

The senior design project schedule is always broken into three sections. The second section ends the week of Thanksgiving. That's a miserable story for another time, but with the help of my girlfriend/wife, I managed to be present for a 10:00pm, Sunday plot time after a three-day all-nighter (there's really not a good term to describe staying up for multiple days in a row) so I could pull one more all-nighter before my Monday jury. That behind me I kind of coasted the rest of the week and went to see family for Thanksgiving. But, since we had that third phase to finish, I was back in the studio Friday evening. I slept in Saturday morning because the weather was miserable, and I wasn't really looking forward to hanging out at the studio alone. I made it in about mid-morning. Many hours and one near-catastrophic computer crash later Tristan, a good friend of mine who had also stayed in town over the break, came up and nearly drug me out of my chair to go get some lunch at about 3:00pm. I'm pretty sure he had only stayed in town for fear of being made to do some terrible farm labor at his grandpa's place in Woodward. Anyway, the miserable weather had begun to drizzle as we were driving back to the Architecture building when he suggested, as we were passing Joe's on Elm Street, to turn on the radio to see how badly we were getting killed. You see the Sooners were ranked No. 3 and we were 3-7 with a new coach. Sitting at the stop sign at Elm and Knoblock the radio announcer exclaimed the the Cowboys were only down 10-6 with a couple minutes until half time! Instead of making the right and driving 200 yards back to the Architecture building, Tristan turned left and drove 200 feet passed the buildings which house the Art, English, Music, and Theater departments to our favorite hangout, the Stonewall Tavern. Based upon those five little houses of academia that were all literally within crawling distance of the 'Wall, you can imagine that it was/is not your 'normal' college tavern.

Nobody was there. Well the bartender was there, but nobody else was there. It was after all Thanksgiving holiday...and 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. Tristan and I remembered that there was a TV, back in the corner of the back room, against the front windows facing the street (the front door of the 'Wall is in the back) that neither of us could recall ever having been on. But $3.00 pitchers enticed us to give it a try. Lo and behold, it worked. The second half started, and we had the freshman backup in at quarterback. Great, our QB is either hurt or he was yet again having a terrible game. Regardless, time passed and we stayed in the game. With three minutes to go, we were down by 4 with the ball! A few moments later, and I had forgotten about this in light of what happened on the next play, our freshman quarterback threw an ill advised prayer to the best defensive back on the field (who is still having an all-pro NFL career). The OSU receiver came out of nowhere to cut in front of the sure interception to drag down a contested catch for a 31-yard first down...14-yards and 120 seconds to a miracle. I remember at that point looking at Tristan, and by some telepathic connection, we both had the same thought, "If we pull this off, Thanksgiving break and all, the ENTIRE student body would be back in less than two hours!"

The very next play, freshman Josh Fields hit sophomore Rashaun Woods on the left boundary of the endzone.

(T.D. Bryant was the miracle receiver on the previous play)

That's the day the OSU finally, let me say that again, finally turned the corner!

A Very Tocquevillian Thought Today

I just had a wonderful thought about the role of government in our society. I know, you're thinking to yourself that a man who can have a wonderful thought about such a thing must be either exceedingly dull or perhaps somewhat odd, but follow me anyway. Since the election of our current President, government control of things has become a central topic of conversation. What should government control, and what should it not? To what extent should government be allowed to control these things and under what Constitutional doctrine? First let me start by stating that I don't tend to view the political spectrum about the Left/Right axis when talking about the scope and power of government. Instead, it's much more useful to view the spectrum which is itself perpendicular to that of the Left/Right; the Individualist/Collectivist spectrum. Let me further state that I tend to approach this spectrum from the Individualist end being that Liberty and the security thereof, I believe, are the highest Ideals to which a man and his government can aspire.

My wonderful thought is this: Government should be allowed to control only that which is uncontrollable by smaller units of society. For instance I cannot defend myself against the aggression of a foreign power, neither can my city, nor my county or state. In this case we cooperatively agree to bestow this monopoly upon the Federal government because it is the smallest unit that can accomplish the task. Likewise with the Space Program. There are perhaps a handful of other things which require a monopoly of control, but if we are to keep ourselves from drifting too close to the collectivist end of the spectrum where individual Liberty cannot be, I think you'll agree that there aren't that many more areas that require a Federal monopoly. Does the Federal government need to control education? It didn't until 1979 and people were very well educated up to that point by their local school boards.

Let's try some controversy: How about Social Security? Medicare? Medicaid? Health Care in general? Do these programs have to be administered by the Federal government? That they are administered so clearly creates a citizenry dependent upon the Federal government ahead of the State; a clear violation of the Constitution via the 10th amendment. A violation only if the State governments were singularly capable of running these programs. Is that the case? Could provisions for retirement be made and administered by the States alone? Why not? What would be the challenges? Are they insurmountable? What about Medicare? I am convinced that this program, more than any other, could become the miracle of our society if we would devolve it to the States.

What's happened is our laziness has caused us to only pursue these things at the Federal level because forging workable legislation to create and maintain them at lower levels of government might be messy. What we're left with instead is just a mess. Instead I believe what should happen is that the States together in Congress should formulate mandates instead of legislation for those things which are not best accomplished by the Federal government. Then they should leave it to the States to accomplish those things. Unfortunately for such a situation to become reality, the States, each as a whole, should be given the power to voice their concerns and opinions on behalf of themselves as States rather than an aggregate of citizens. We had that once. In fact it was written into the Constitution until the 17th Amendment wrote it out. That one act more than any other has insured that this country will not continue forever as a Republic. With it there is no longer a check against the central government overwhelming the States and turning them into merely administrative districts which are then powerless to hold back the centralisation of power in the only remaining legitimate government. Actually, since the Supreme Court is the only body that recognizes any of the States' sovereignty above that of the citizens, I think they may be all that stands between the Republic of the United States of America and the Democratic Bureaucracy of America!

Insight From Nov. 3rd

Adrian:

Arguing morality with an atheist; it's like arguing with a blind man that blue is good and yellow is bad.

Doug:

"Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt.""

-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) and advocate of Utilitarianism, perhaps the dominate normative ethical theory.

Adrian:

‎"Thou shalt not" implies that "thou shalt" anything else. To be only permitted to do that which is expressly permitable is an exceedingly restrictive, legalistic approach to life. The alternative frees us to act wither we will. Saying that a man can only walk on the sidewalk begs the question about walking in the grass. To say that man may only NOT walk in the road frees him to wander the forest path of his own volition.

Doug:

Plato would agree. And he predates Christ by about 400 years. Kant advocates for an objective good that has nothing to do with any theological commitments. Both of these are objective goods, that have nothing to do with any theological presuppositions.

Wilson:

As a non-Christian, I have to respectfully disagree with your argument. Obviously when one gets into specifics I have differing opinions, but overall I adhere to the same moral code laid out by Christians. What it all boils down to is being good to other people.

Adrian:

What then is the source of your moral code?

“I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but by it I see everything else.” -C.S. Lewis

This statement is true for any other belief system. Before you can proclaim anything to be good, you must presuppose that the thing possesses a qualitative nature to begin with, that the nature of those qualities can be identified or equated with goodness, itself a virtue of completely unidentifiable origin; unidentifiable from a deterministic standpoint anyway. What I'm saying is that to believe in good or bad, right or wrong, you're believing in something that is necessarily transcendent to our capacity to understand the world as animal creatures. The breadth of the thoughts we have, the depth and color of the feelings we feel, the pain and ecstasy infused in the passions we hold cannot be adequately explained by any system of understanding that does not include transcendency. Nothing about dominating another human being in a physical contest should make me yearn to roar victorious. Nothing about suffering the agony of the crag should make me want to write a song about the ascent. Nothing about a sunset should make me want to paint a picture. In fact, nothing outside of instinct should make me want anything apart from food, sex, and warmth.

The incorporation of belief into a person's spectrum of understanding is the light Mr. Lewis was referring to that allows us to discern the qualities of reality rather than merely the quantities. One could record tomes describing in precise quantitative measures the exact composition of the world's greatest painting and never produce a sigh; the wavelengths and meter of the world's greatest drama and never produce a tear. Without belief there is a wide swath of human experience that is inaccessible to understanding. To actually suffer from this condition would be to lobotomize your own humanity. However, most folks go on living these experiences without seeking to understand them; yet they are able to have them. They can't help it. They're human.

Really my atheist isn't blind, he just doesn't want to open his eyes.

Doug:

I understand Dr. Lewis to be saying that he sees the world through the eye of Christianity. That is not a bad thing at all, in fact it can be a rather good thing. However, it is not the only good thing. Mill would advocate on behalf of an objective good which all peoples could adhere, that is, the greatest good (measured by well-being) for the greatest number of people. And Kant would say the only good is a good will, which is measured by conformity to the categorical imperative. And Plato would point to his Form of the Good, against which all other good things participate. So to say that Lewis's good is the only good seems short sighted, given the company he has with competing conceptions of good.

Adrian:

An objective good? To that I can only ask for dry water!

I never said that it was the only good, just that to author good is beyond the prerogative of man, and that to perceive its being requires an understanding of that which is beyond the physical. Whatever that is has been left to our own discernment.

Doug:

So you agree that good does not have to be defined in terms of Christianity, as in your first post?

Adrian:

I never said that it did in my first post. You made that assumption.

Doug:

Arguing morality with an atheist; it's like arguing with a blind man that blue is good and yellow is bad. You were not refering to some sort of God, presumably the Christian God, since you then quote Lewis?

Adrian:

Your presumption. I like Lewis' statement. It's very visual and illustrative like the way I think, but its Christian-ness was not why I chose it.

I believe that good is authored by God. I believe that we've been granted the ability to make up our own minds about God. I think that's what He meant by the "...created in His own image..." part. I don't think it's acceptable for me to impune another man for not believing in God or for believing in some other god. He's exercising his "god-ness" in doing so. I can not agree with him, and I can try to convince him otherwise, but I don't have the right to pass judgement on his decision. I believe that this man may perceive goodness by virtue of his humanity, but like I said, I believe that God authored goodness and that certain things don't hold that quality.

Doug:

That sounds like a statement of faith, then, and not a statement of reason. I'm not necessarily denegrating faith, other than as reletively weak evidence for any substantive claim about the nature of the world. Does objective good exist? Some, like Plato, Kant, Moore, and others have said so, and the best support I can give for it is that if it isn't objective, then it must be subjective, and if that is the case, one conception of the good is as good as any other. Therefore, your claim that those denying God have no access to an understanding of morality cannot be true. It is only one of a number of concepts of the good, and most of them make moral claims.

Adrian:

I'm saying precisely that all good is subjective, hence the dry water. However, it is not subject to our own judgment. It's subject to its author's judgement. That certain words appear on the page, unchangeable, for me to read doesn't change the fact that their arrangement was chosen to fit the author's pleasure.

Why is charity good? Nothing in nature informs me that charity is good, yet people perceive that it is. There's no reason why charity should be good or bad. There's no reason we can determine anyway. I don't think it's possible for man to determine the reason for goodness. Many of man's greatest minds, some of whom you've mentioned, have crashed their ship upon that rock, yet the rock remains. Nobody can figure a reason for good yet everybody feels it.

Ultimately, that I lay out my clothes at night is a statement of faith. That we assume the universe will continue to work in the manner which we have always perceived it is a statement of faith. That you, Doug, are an independent being capable of receiving this correspondence rather than just a figment of my imagination is a statement of faith. For us to presume that reason alone will produce understanding is another way of lobotomizing our humanity. You may focus on developing the greatest understanding that reason can provide, but to rely on reason alone is, to me, to admit at the outset that you are satisfied with not knowing.

Doug:

Wait, if good is dependent on the author's judgement, doesn't that realize that good is subjective, since there are so many ideas of the good, and that your original premise is flawed?

Adrian:

I said that good was subjective, and that the author is transcendent. My original premise was that, without belief, there is a quality of reality that is wholly inaccessible; like the concept of color to a blind man. Not only is it inaccessible, it's un-understandable.

Two seeing people may argue the merits of the colors blue and yellow. A whole host of cultural, religious, historical, and philosophical perspectives may be brought to bear by either man to justify his opinion, but...and don't miss this...neither man can deny that blue is blue and yellow is yellow. Not only can they not deny this intrinsic quality, our perception of this quality is dependent upon the light that illuminates it. Its color cannot be seen without the light, and the color which it displays is one part of that greater shining light.

Now a blind man who can sufficiently convince another man that, because of his insightful blindness, the color of the thing matters not to the reality of what that thing really is can begin to make the argument that blue is not blue and yellow is not yellow. For him these qualities are irrelevant. He perceives what is for him the whole of the reality of the thing, and the claims of others to an imperceptible quality are superfluous. For him if blue is blue is no different than if blue is yellow. It doesn't effect his perception of the thing. Yet to those who can perceive, his blue that is yellow is completely incredulous. For him to continue to assert that blue is yellow in the company of sighted people requires that he continually petition on behalf of his assertion against the clear understanding of his fellows, and that his fellows individually cede the point that color does not matter thus diminishing their own perception. If enough cede to this diminished understanding, the color of things, while still present in the eyes of the sighted, becomes irrelevant. The color of things becomes incidental and unimportant. "The blue sky may as well be yellow, it just happens to be blue...whatever." This becomes the corporate reality, and people who adhere to the idea that color is an intrinsic and important quality of things are either mocked or marginalized for their belief in what is clearly, to the masses anyway, a random phenomenon.

So it is with all human activity. All actions have a moral quality: blue or yellow, good or bad, righteous or sinful, karmicly positive or karmicly negative, etc. For men to be convinced that this quality doesn't exist, opens the door for good being bad and bad being good as well as fueling the contempt for and marginalization of those who adhere to the understanding of morality; objective for us, subjective for God.

(I realize now having made that last statement that you and I have been engaging each other in different conversations)

Doug:

The problem I have with your original statement is that you, on a faith premise seem to privilege one understanding of good, and it happens to be the one you adhere to (I think). That seems to privilege your understanding of transcendence, if you want to go that route. Plato would also understand a good based on a transcendent understanding, but quite different from the one advanced by Christians. G.E. Moore advances a transcendent good, but claims that it is roots lie in human relationships. So, again, I wonder what privileges your particular understanding of transcendent, or what amounts to the same question that Wilson asked.

Adrian:

That's what I meant when I said that we're having two different conversations. The difference between the basis for my understanding of transcendence and somebody else's conception of transcendence is not what I'm talking about. That we have a conception of transcendence where other profess not to is what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the source of the light from which believers see an aspect of reality. I'm talking about the idea that believers SEE at all, where an atheist cannot or will not, and the implications of this blindness.

Doug:

But then you still have the problem with why the atheist's conception of morality is lacking or missing, as your statement implies, because you privilege your perception over theirs.

Adrian:

I'm asserting that morality is inherently a transcendent quality, that its very existence is dependent upon deity just as color is dependent upon a source of light. An object in the absence of light has no color. It may have the potential for color, but until illuminated cannot be said to possess color. It can be touched, tasted, smelled, and even heard, but it cannot be seen. There is a potential quality possessed by the thing that cannot be perceived in the absence of light.

Our atheist would seem to fit the syllogism left unstated: The nature of all morality is fundamentally transcendent; Atheism denies the existence of transcendency, therefore an atheist cannot determine the nature of morality. That an atheist perceives morality is, I think, indicative of his own transcendence, though he chooses to ignore it. So my initial statement would seem to be flawed. The atheist is not a blind man, rather he's a seeing man who is unable to define color, though he sees it. By denying that a source of light defines an object's color, yet being able to see the color, he's left with two possible conclusions: That the color intrinsic to a thing emanates from the thing itself (Animism), or that the color of a thing is a product of his own mind and therefore not intrinsic to the thing and not necessarily of the same color to anybody else (Relativism).

Why Occupy Wall Street Is Bound To Not Succeed

"But since then [The French Revolution] the revolutionary or speculative mind of Europe (and since the 1960's the West in general) has been weakened by shrinking from any proposal because of the limits of that proposal. Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have tried to turn 'revolutionise' (sic) from a transitive to an intransitive verb. The Jacobin (French revolutionary) could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but what was more important, the system he would not rebel against, the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus...(a)s a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is a waste of time. A Russian pessimist (by which he refers to Anton Chekhov, I think) will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself...A man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts (a reference to Darwinism). In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for the purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost the right to rebel against anything."

-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

What I find most remarkable about this passage is that nothing has changed in the 103 years since it was written. For fear of being found offensive to somebody or to provide justification for increasingly immoral behavior, the West has only been in a bigger hurry to rid itself of any guiding moral structure since the turn of the last century. What we are seeing now may be, and hopefully is, the last display of a terminally myopic view of reality. More and more people are coming to understand that in the absence of an ideal, change can only be destructive. But to hold an ideal, to cling to something dear not yet real, one must make a choice not to hold to some other ideal. These protesters who hold nothing dear are merely apparitions and will quickly enough evaporate away in the face of a strongly held conviction based upon a clear ideal. What will not fade so readily will be those hiding among this mass who do hold a clear conviction whose ideal depends upon support from the anarchists. Can these people possibly have in mind the best interests of anybody but themselves?

Note To Self - October 21, 2011

(Conversation relating to "Did Jesus Really Die For Our Sins?" - Piatt - Huffington Post October 18, 2011)

Me:

Quoted in the article is, "...the notion of Jesus dying for our sins did not gain traction in the Christian imagination until at least a dozen centuries after Christ's death." The article conflates the idea that somehow Christians' understanding that Christ died for our sin changed because historical Christianity held a moral influence view of atonement, which was supplanted by Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement in the Middle Ages. Yes Jesus' death on the cross is necessary to the idea of satisfaction, but it's equally essential to moral influence which would be impossible without it. What he's trying to say is that the Bishop of Canterbury "discovered" the doctrine of Christ's sacrifice in the eleventh century! We've understood that Jesus died for our sins from the beginning (1 Corinthians was written 20-ish years after the resurrection).

Chis:

...the Bishop of Canterbury "discovering" things really just fits into the history of the church. Now, before I go any further, let me say that I am no bible history buff or anything like that, so I may be talking out I the side of my mouth here. I have a bit of an issue with the bible itself. Not that it isn't the word of God as told to men, but that the church decided what books/letters/stories we were to be given. What is in the rest of the letters? What is in the Apocrypha? (I could find that out pretty easily). What about all the Pagan customs & traditions that were "adopted" to bring in the unwashed masses?

I think I may have lost the plot for what I was trying to get at to begin with here, but you might be able to find a point in there somewhere.

Me:

As far as the compilation of the Bible is concerned, I don't think people are ever going to be convinced that the result is all of God's word to man as well as His only word to man. Yes there are the Apocrypha and the unincorporated Gospels, but you must consider the quandry facing the men who assembled the Bible. It's very obvious that not all documents and ideas the are attributed to God are genuine. Jeremiah made a living out of contradicting "God's" prophets. And then there's the Gnostic gospels...some truly weird stuff there.

The pagan thing makes me chuckle every time I get to talk about it! I had a conversation with a lady last Christmas who was critical of the white Jesus depiction, and I think my point opened her eyes a little. Imagine that it's just four hours past noon and the sun is already setting because your Gaelic homeland is so far north when you see the men of you village (about 10...maybe) surrounding a travelling stranger. This stranger has come to tell you the story of the Savior of man. If he used a picture to do so, which is not out of the question being a foreign missionary, how do you think his message would be received if he depicted a Middle Eastern Jesus? These people have never, and will never see a person of color! On the Mongolian steppe, would it be out of bounds to depict an Asian Jesus? How about a black Jesus in the Congo? What's interesting about Christianity in this regard is that it is the only religious system that conforms to the cultures in which it finds itself so that the face of Christianity is myriad. You can't say that about Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism. You might say it about Buddhism, but Buddhism really isn't a "religion" per se so much as it's a philosophical worldview.

Insight From Oct. 21

(Commentary from "Shadow Elite: Has The Obama Organized Machine Staged A Party Takeover?" - Wedel, Keenan - Huffington Post July 8, 2010)

Any of the various -kratia exist to serve the interests of those allowed to direct them. Money-dire­cted (plutocrac­y) will serve money; excellence­-directed (aristocra­cy) will serve those deemed excellent, etc. Only when personal liberty is a sacred ideal of those chosen to direct, will it be potentiall­y protected, and then only by dint of broad agreement by the choosers that this ideal is indeed sacred.

The post-modern view of the world lends itself to the politics of division; politics based upon personal identity characteristics (sexual orientatio­n, tribal affiliatio­n, age, religion..­.), class, race, etc. This view effectively seeks to cultivate unique worldviews within small segments of the electorate­. These unique views impede our ability to share ideals with each other to present some coherent understand­ing of what we can all believe in. Consequent­ly the whole composed of discordant cells is easier to manipulate for the plutocrats­, aristocrat­s, and any one else willing to take advantage of the system.

Gaius Julius Caesar intentiona­lly played the Celtic tribes of Gaul off of one another prior to his moving in for the kill, and so too may it be in our own political arena.

Insight From Oct. 18

(A snippet of conversation from Oct. 18, 2011)

...My fundamental assumptions about what this country is supposed to be are indeed exactly what I'm talking about. The fact is that our society's own assumption of who we are and what our purpose is has become unhinged from its door post and increasingly fragmented.

Once upon a time there was a prevailing narrative that was taught to children that the US was good, was a force for good, and though flawed, was best place man had yet contrived. It was left to the tincture of time and experience of adulthood to temper this ideal into a pragmatic view of who we had become, from the standpoint of whence we came, in order that the American mantel could be aptly and responsibly taken up by a mature generation. This understanding of how we are to form our assumptions as well as how and when we are to exert our influence on society based upon those assumptions has been and is being undermined on at least two fronts. First, we no longer indoctrinate our children into that prevailing narrative of goodness. Two examples, one each from opposing political perspectives, are Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Jefferson used to be the nearly beatified narrator of our core ideal, The Declaration of Independence. Now, through the efforts of academics like Annette Gordon-Reed, Jefferson is a racist, adulterous slave owner, and this impression is presented with a gravity and to an age of student that was formerly thought wholly inappropriate. Lincoln was likewise nearly beatified as The Great Emancipator, but now, through an increasingly more accepted argument (for which I apologize for the lack of citation), Lincoln is practically the destroyer of states' rights and by extension our entire republican federation. Second, we no longer pass the mantel to the next mature generation. People in American over the age of 40 are the first people in history to learn their society's survival skills from the younger generation. The youth of America increasingly drive our national conversation at exactly the time when they are the least qualified to do so!

I empathize with the sentiment of OWS, I really do, but I believe that their aim is misguided, their goals incoherent, their understanding of the issue misinformed, and I believe they are willingly lending their enthusiasm to groups representing political ideals whose implementation would literally be a horror to most of the country including, likely, themselves. I may take up other aspects of this conversation later as time allows, but for now understand that my fear is that our country's educators have been doing a gross disservice to our nation's youth for a host of reasons; none of which are even in our nation conversation right now for the most part.

A Question Of Motive

“’I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know how earnestly, in the past months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others…[But as] I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect…at the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering…I looked down…I was once more Edward Hyde.’

This is a deadly turn of events. For the first time Jekyll becomes Hyde involuntarily, without the potion, and this is the beginning of the end. Unable to control his transformations any longer, Jekyll kills himself. Stevenson’s insight here is, I think, profound. Why would Jekyll become Hyde without the potion? Like so many people, Jekyll knows he’s a sinner, so he tries desperately to cover his sin with great piles of good works. Yet his efforts do not actually shrivel his pride and self-righteousness, they only aggrevate it. They lead him to superiority, self-righteousness, pride and suddenly---look! Jekyll becomes Hyde, not in spite of his goodness, but because of his goodness.”1

So the struggle I’m having, as you discerned from what was not written in my letter, is that I value man’s altruism; our actual instances of really helping each other. However, as a believer, I understand that there is a distinction between man’s acts and God’s acts through men. What Mr. Keller describes in the preceding passage is especially relevant to believers, and particularly to myself, even though secular people either cannot or will not understand the dilemma we face as God’s servants. In the world’s eyes all acts of relief to our fellow men are acts of goodness. Maybe they are. Maybe the good that is accomplished is done for God’s purposes regardless of the motivation. As believers though we are keen to discern the motivation behind our own acts of charity, and assure ourselves that we are acting in God’s will rather than our own. Frankly this fear of self-aggrandizement, I believe, has paralyzed much of American Christianity to the point where secular people of high moral character can justifiably condemn us for our own inaction; our “lazy cruelty”. I also believe that this pervasive ‘laziness’ reveals atrophy in our individual personal relationships with God. There is suffering in the world. Sin has assured that. However, just as sin grieves the Father, suffering must as well being the child of sin. If we were in prayer with God, oneness with His Spirit, I doubt that so many of us would remain idle.

This is where I am today. My relationship with God has grown these last few years to the point where I feel like I am beginning to see His Spirit at work in the world around me. I am beginning to see that there are great opportunities for God’s glory to become manifest in the world around us, and I’m even beginning to feel like He’s inviting me to follow His Spirit to where the work is being done. But I’m not sure. One night this summer while waiting for sleep, I was struck by the fact that Evergreen has fifteen acres of weeds and grass. Then I thought of the subsidized housing project that I pass in Yale every time I go to Stillwater. It occurred to me that there may be a child living there who might not have enough to eat. “Why are we growing weeds and not food?” I asked myself. Then that same week a friend of an internet friend knows a guy at the Food Bank found out that things are looking pretty bleak over there. I immediately thought of fifteen acres. I approached Jerry Voris with the idea, and he told me of his brother’s church in Missouri that does this very same thing. He mentioned that it takes many volunteers, but he did remind me that the Evergreen has a tractor. About this time, I thought that I should broach this topic with Michael and see if it would even be a possibility. Then, to my horror, I realized that maybe I should ask God where He was at on the topic first!

I’ve been praying for two months now for clarity on the issue and each time I’m met with more concerns. “How are you going to find time? What if nobody wants to volunteer? Where will the money for equipment, seed, fertilizer, herbicide, and irrigation come from? How will your wife feel about another commitment? What if nothing grows?” And on and on. Intermingled with this are images of my standing as leader at the head of the people that it would take to make it happen along with the musing of being interviewed by the Tulsa World. These images and questions are at once terrifying and tantalizing and seem to be the creation of my own Mr. Hyde. The Devil first gives me a litany of why I can’t do it then pricks my ego and dares me to push ahead. “You can do it”, he says. “You’ll be great!” no mention of God’s greatness. But when I prayerfully imagine the enterprise as God’s own, He gives me no sense of contradiction. Maybe He’s forcing me to trouble shoot all aspects of the operation in my own mind to ensure that this talent he’s entrusting to me doesn’t get buried. I just don’t know yet.

Steve Jobs’ death culled out of me my desire to be helpful to my fellow man. Jesus practically implores, and maybe even demands me to live this life of service. I’m just really having a hard time getting myself out of the way. You know?

1Timothy Keller, The Reason For God (Dutton, 2008), Chapter 11 “Religion And The Gospel”, p. 176.

• • 
    

What Steve Job's Passing Revealed To Me

I'm not a Mac fan, have never really been a technologically inspired person, and am in fact somewhat of a neo-Luddite when it comes to the inclusion of technology in my life. Hey, I grew up near an Amish community; they rub off on you. All this is to say that when he passed, I was only vaguely aware of who Steve Jobs was, and I was certainly never an Apple acolyte.

It started as I drove to work and listened to the reporting of his death and related venerations for his life on the radio. What I felt then is hard to describe. While my first reaction, thankfully, was sorrow over the untimely death of a fellow human being, it was tinged with an aura of negativity. By the time I got to work, a place replete with Apple enthusiasts, that negativity had manifested itself in my heart as a sort of resentment. Why? Why did I resent this man? "This man's no different than the rest of us!", I said to myself. "What makes this guy more special than anybody else?"

There was a sort of jealousy pervading my heart; a strange, not-at-all-covetous sort of jealousy. His wealth didn't make me jealous. His creativity and effusion of creations did not make me jealous. I began to think that the public outpouring of emotion was the cause of my dark heart only to find that it was not, but was closely related to what I did find. Steve Jobs mattered. He mattered in a way that I likely never will. Oh, I'm not talking about the, "you matter to your friends and family" or the, "you matter to God" sort of mattered. He impacted other people's lives; people he never met. Life was made better for some people because of what he did. That realization, in comparison to my own insignificance on that stage, in combination with his drive and motivation were what was coloring my emotion. But that's not what I learned.

This jealousy manifested itself in a way that I now recognize as being fairly typical of my behavior, though to discover that it was so came as an uncomfortable shock. I immediately began to react to each instance reminding me of his death from newspaper articles to FB posts with a sort of personal equivalency. "Yes, yes, he was a great man", I would think to myself, "but I'm probably just as savvy and capable as he was." The unspoken coda to this impulse was, "and I will be if only..." A miraculous series of self-motivated events would have to happen for that ellipsis to be not so, and that's only assuming that I am as capable or savvy a man as he. And there's the lesson! In order for me to compare myself favorably with Steve Jobs I must overlook the distance between his accomplishment and my own. I must devalue his contributions in order to find equivalency amongst the catalogue of my achievements. I must destroy his accomplishments in my own mind to do anything other than look up at him. And my heart doesn't want to look up at him. My heart wants to be looked up to! Pride my friends, pride.

This effect has caused me to look at some of the great pillars of my appreciation: Mozart, St. Timothy, James Madison, Aristotle and Socrates, Vermeer, and the list could go on. My understanding of my own contribution to humanity has literally come crashing down to shatter at my feet this week. While that no doubt develops an image of depression in your mind, as it does my own, I can now look up though the unclouded skylight newly broken. And I see stars!

Occupy Wall Street

What's happening on Wall Street is a good thing in that attention is being brought to the need for reigning in the speculative capitalization that is weighing our economy down. I believe this capitalization is inherent and unavoidable when those who have the means to capitalize on a pending disaster freely do so at the expense of the rest of us. However, I also believe that it is merely a symptom of an economy in collapse caused by other problems. What those problems are may be debatable, but at least in the case of the housing market crisis, it is undeniable that direct government intervention was the cause. However, policy is not the point of this essay.

As citizens of an increasingly nominal republic, what is happening on Wall Street should give us cause to gird ourselves for the coming cultural conflict that will greatly resemble that of the 1960's. Nobody wanted war in the 1960's. Politicians engaged in the conflict for strategic reasons, and the 'Greatest Generation' sent their sons off to fulfill their duty. As the Vietnam War drug on, public dissatisfaction with the course of the war was near universal from what I can tell. However, the vast majority of mature, conservative Americans chose not to voice their dissatisfaction publicly feeling that to do so would be an expression of disloyalty. The populist uprising that came to be the face of anti-war expression was composed almost entirely of young people and encouraged by their professors who used their students' enthusiasm and malleability to incarnate their Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist views in American society. The moral high ground attained by these young protestors' anti-war sentiment was used to legitimize these inherently anti-American views which were then allowed to develop in the minds and actions of this generation of people and their protégés until we find ourselves today in a completely divided America.

Listen to the words of this new generation of (again) young protestors. The policy prescriptions that they cite are incorherent and related to a problem that they cannot specifically define but simply refer to as "injustice". Here's the danger! A fight is being drawn up over some issue that nobody can rightly define. What's to stop these people from defining it in any way they want? What's to stop them from focusing in on policy solutions that don't coherently address what is really the problem but rather what they feel is the problem because addressing that thing makes them feel better? Revolutionary history is instructive in this area. Once upon a time there were twin revolutions. One was fought against extremely well-defined policy and was fought for extremely well-defined reasons. The other was an unbridled emotional outburst against "injustice". I ask you, in which of these two revolutions were innocent heads cut off?

We need to be quick to define what this is all about because frankly, in these people's eyes, my neck is vulnerable!

An AWANA Story

This morning I woke up having a dream. It was the kind of dream that you begin having in your sleep and find yourself having awoken somewhere in the middle whereafter your brain decides to finish the dream on its own before getting your body out of bed; sort of like that moment when you step off of the moving sidewalk at the airport and you realize a split second later then you should have that you need to start walking in order to keep moving.

In my dream I was standing in the worship center at church during Pastor Gabbert’s sermon, about half way back of the section to the right of center. My first impression was that this was odd. Then I realized that this was one of Michael’s experimental sermons where he gives the microphone to the congregation and has us preach the sermon through our testimonies. In my dream, I was very relieved as I noticed the microphone being conducted in my direction.

I took the microphone from Pastor Mike. At least I think it was Pastor Mike. Either it was Pastor Mike with glasses or Pastor Phil with a beard. Dreams are strange like that. So I took the microphone and began giving my testimony.

“Does anybody else here get the impression that Pastor Gabbert really, really has it together; but that somewhere deep down, way back where nobody can see it, he has the capacity to freak out; and when he does it’s like the mother of all freak outs?” I’m serious, this is how I started my testimony. “Well if you get that impression too, don’t look at him for the next five minutes. You can look at him in six, but don’t look at him for the next five.

“I’m Adrian Martin, and I’m the AWANA Commander.” Having attended AA meetings as a child my mind conjures up somebody saying, “Hi Adrian” to which I give a little chuckle. “I’m the AWANA Commander, but I have to admit, I don’t feel like a good one. I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job reaching these kids. It’s all about the kids, and I feel like there’s got to be somebody in this church who can do this better than me. Basically for that reason I’ve considered resigning my position as AWANA Commander for a while; about a year in fact.

“I didn’t come to this decision lightly or without a lot of prayer. However, ask yourself if you’ve ever found yourself doing this.” Getting into a prayerful posture with my head bowed and eyes closed I began praying into the microphone. “’God, what have you done?,’ like I’m his mom or something. ‘God, you’ve really made a mistake putting me into this position. I’m not any good at it. I don’t know how to motivate people. I don’t know how to really get through to these kids. God, I’m making it up down here. Could you give me a hand? Tell me where to go? What the right thing to do is?’ at which point I do this.” I put the microphone into my front pocket, and with face uplifted to the heavens, I clench my eyes shut and bury my fingers in my ears.

“What’s that God? I’m having trouble hearing you,” I yell at the ceiling without the aid of the microphone. After a few seconds, my posture slackens into a dejected pose as I regain a handle on the mic saying, “I guess he’s not got anything to say to me about this.” So in the absence of a clear reply from God, I move forward, acting on my feelings and my conviction that surely a better man will step up, and inform the Pastor that I don’t want to do this anymore.

“Heh, heh. Now God decides to have a little fun.

“Several weeks ago we held our annual AWANA Grand Prix. It’s a pinewood derby for the kids where we all can get together at the church, have some fun, and give the kids some awards; some of which are pretty silly. My favorite is, ‘The best car that’s shaped like the block of wood that it started out as award.’ The saga of getting the track is another story altogether.

“Anyway we had our AWANA Grand Prix which, like all other extracurricular AWANA events, is designed to bring in moms and dads and brothers and sisters who may have never been to church or at least could stand to hear the Gospel message again. Being that this is the actual point of the event, we sorta need to have a speaker to do the presentation. I think to myself, ‘You know, talking in front of people is not that different than singing in front of people, and besides, all the AWANA events I’ve ever been to have essentially the same message. The presenter goes through some version of the Gospel Wheel, which is a pneumonic device to remember some of the key verses that illuminate the path to salvation, and relates that to a personal experience. No problem.’

“And that’s what I really thought. Even on Monday of that week, I was thinking to myself that I didn’t need to worry about putting anything together. It would just fall into place. That’s some serious faith for a guy with his fingers in his ears! Although I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a better message that I needed to deliver so I didn’t really commit to preparing that first message.

“Thursday night I had a revelation, mind you the Grand Prix is on Saturday morning. God had shown me what I was going to talk about. Although, as I was lying in bed that night thinking about this message, it dawned on me that it was actually more of a sermon. You know, my first sermon ever…no seminary, no training, no nothing. So I did what I’m sure all scared young pastors do before their first sermons; nothing. No prep, no outline, no nothing. I was just going to give this one to God and let him run with it.

“Well Saturday morning after I had gotten all the stuff set up for the Grand Prix I had a panic attack and feverishly made something like an outline for this sermon I was going to deliver. Relieved, I went about conducting the event up to the point where I was to give the message. I got up on the platform and immediately felt like I had walked into the women’s restroom. You need to go to the restroom. You get to the restroom. You are horrified at your mistake and scream to yourself, ‘How am I going to get out of here?’ That was what the realization felt like when I discovered that singing in front of people and speaking in front of people…not the same!

“So I dive into it, and while I’m speaking I look out at the people and notice several things. Every adult in the audience has more life experience than me. So I say to myself, ‘Who am I to be giving insight about life to these people.’ It doesn’t help that one of them is squinting her eyes and furrowing her brow like I’m speaking badly in English like it’s not my first language. Also, and I think this is a universal constant, there’s a segment of the audience that is all kids; sort of like the ‘Youth Section’ in every church I’ve ever been to. And, I think this is a universal constant as well, the level of attention from that direction was somewhat less than sharp.

“All of these thoughts going on behind the thoughts you’re trying to convey does a number on your grammar by the way.

“So I finish. I’m sure I don’t even remember the last half of what I said, but I made it. Time sort of warped by, and we finished up the Grand Prix.

“I was standing off to the side while a couple of our ladies were doing the awards presentations. I didn’t notice that one of the dads had come up to me until he said, ‘Hey, what you said just now, that really meant a lot.’ And he proceeded to tell me about how he’d been out of work for several months, how this had gotten him really down, and that it was having a major negative effect on his marriage. He said that what I had to say had reinvigorated him to pick himself up and carry on again.” At this point I knock on the microphone three times and in my best God voice I say, “Can you hear me now?”

“Now I know that should have been the rapture moment when the heavens opened and the angel choir sang, but it wasn’t. It seemed more like God was just saying, ‘Yes I heard you.’ Now am I the only person that imagines a twinkle in God’s eye when He says things like that?

“A couple of weeks later in Sunday school this same man sits down next to me only now he’s got this big ‘ol grin on his face. ‘You know that Saturday a couple weeks back when you gave that message? Well that next week I got an interview! I started the next week! I’ve only been there,’ and honestly I don’t remember how long he said, but it was less than two weeks. ‘…and it’s been a better experience then the twelve years I just put in at the last place!’” I knock on the microphone again. “Can you hear me now?” I say again in my God voice. “Only this time it was that revelation.”

“What I’ve learned is this, as the AWANA Commander, it is all about the kids, but not really. You see my primary job as leader of this ministry is not to DO the ministry. I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to DO the ministry, and I’ve been frustrated by my ineffectiveness; sometimes to the point of actively disengaging. What I need to be doing is encouraging and invigorating the leaders in our program so that they can better DO the ministry. This does not come naturally to me. I was always the player. I’ve never been the coach, and I don’t really know how do it. Also, I need to be encouraging the church, you guys, so that you can help us DO the ministry too.

“All that starts with my testimony to you that God has trusted me to do this work, I believe he will empower me to do this work, and with His help and your support I am now committed to being the best AWANA Commander that we can have at this church.”

With that, I imagined myself handing the microphone back to Pastor Mike/Phil and got up to go take a shower.

Why have there been so many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions recently?

(I wrote this article about a year ago, but in light of this month's earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, I though it appropriate to represent it for people's consideration.)

Watching the news and reading the headlines on the internet would lead one to believe that late 2009 and 2010 thus far has seen an unusual number of geotectonic events. I have often thought, and heard more than a few say, that the perceived increase in seismic activity is due to our contemporary profusion of information sources and that there really hasn’t been an actual increase in geotectonic activity. On the subject of earthquakes, the experts at the USGS agree with this view: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2439.

See also http://www.enn.com/climate/article/41234.

This recent perceived increase in seismic activity may speak more to mankind’s habitation of more of the Earth’s surface in higher numbers than ever before. Although, like the kernel of truth contained at the core of every myth, I cannot help but think that there may be some truth to the idea that the Earth’s surface is on the move a little more than before. I also wonder if there has been an increase in volcanic activity recently. Although my cursory search hasn’t led to any credible sources supporting or refuting the notion of recently increased volcanic activity, I have found one article from The Guardian (UK) that at least implies that volcanic activity is on the rise: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/07/disasters

This article written by Bill McGuire, the director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College of London, attributes what may be an increase in recent volcanism to a higher volume of near-surface magma caused by the increased surface pressure on the Earth’s crust due to higher sea levels attributable to global warming induced glacier melt. Basically, that more water in the oceans squeezes the Earth, and volcanoes erupt as a result. One crack that I see in this idea is that the scope of the hypothesis is entirely internal to a closed system. The Earth has not received a large deposit of water recently so it’s fair to say that what was here before is still here now. From a material standpoint, the system has not changed. The sea-level connection to increased volcanism requires that the particular distribution of the material in the closed system be the cause of the observed effect. This may be plausible because large amounts of water locked up in glaciers, which are highly localized, causes a very different pressure distribution on the Earth’s crust then the same amount of material spread over a much larger area in the form of water. I am not here to refute the possibility that this idea may be the truth, but I would like to put forth another explanation for the rise in volcanic activity particularly and geotectonic activity in general: The Sun.

Throughout our history, mankind has held an ever-changing view of what his world was like. At one time, the Earth’s geologic features were thought to be the bones of titans laid low by the gods in the starry heavens above. Then we moved to a concept of the Earth as one whole, in the center of all that was, and surrounded by successively more distant spheres of the heavens. Next, we removed the idea of the spheres when we realized that the things not of this Earth were in fact unique objects of their own at some knowable distance away from the Earth. From there we formed the idea of the solar system with the Earth at its center and at the center of all things. Then the sun was at the center, but was still the center of all things. That view was dashed when we found that our star was but one of many which revolved around a common center as part of our galaxy. We essentially find ourselves at this view today. Our prior obsession with the center has carried over into our contemporary consciousness in that even though we understand that our solar system is not at the center of anything, we still think that the Sun is at the center of our solar system. This in fact is not the case. Astronomical scholars know this, but when considering the effects of our Sun’s eccentricity I believe that one certain effect, naturally part of this eccentric system, has been overlooked.

The things in our solar system each have a mass which produces a certain amount of gravity, are arranged in a particular fashion at different points in time, and are moving at certain speeds. All of these properties exist in such a way that dynamic equilibrium within the system is maintained. Dynama-what? Assuming that our solar system is a closed system, meaning that it doesn’t receive any input from forces that originate from outside of the system which is essentially true, this dynamic equilibrium is an equilibrium in which opposite changes occur simultaneously; an equilibrium in which two reversible reactions occur at the same rate. When one planet moves, its change in position with respect to all of the other objects causes the effects of its gravity on all the other objects to change. In response the effects of gravity from all of the other objects on the planet that moved change with respect to that planet in its new position. This is an example of Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion that, “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions (Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi).”

An extremely simplistic analogy of the situation described above is that every object in our solar system is connected to every other object in our solar system with a “string”. As the system moves and rotates, these “strings” get longer or shorter as the distance between the objects changes. The force in each of these “strings” is inversely proportional to its length. That is the shorter a “string” is the harder it tries to get shorter. As you may have guessed already, these “strings” in combination with their internal forces as described above represent gravity. The magnitude of the gravity produced by each object is in direct proportion to its mass. Of the mass in our solar system, the Sun accounts for 99.87% of it. The mass of Jupiter accounts for 73.42% of the remaining mass or roughly 0.1% of the total mass of the system. It would seem that the Sun is the 800 lb. gorilla and that the effects of everything else are negligible which is essentially correct except for one effect. If we say that everything other than the Sun and Jupiter are along for the ride then we’re left with two objects connected with one string. Jupiter appears to orbit about the Sun, which cannot be correct because of the assumption that the Sun is stationary and remains stationary. Equilibrium cannot be maintained because as Jupiter rotates, its gravity pulls on the Sun causing it to begin to move. The system has changed and cannot be said to have remained in equilibrium. The reality is that both the Sun and Jupiter are rotating about a common point, and that the mass of Jupiter times its distance to this point is equal to the mass of the Sun times its distance to the point. One very large mass times a very small distance is equal to a very small mass times a very large distance. This point of common rotation is called the barycenter.

Why go to such length to create an analogy to describe the barycenter, and what does the interaction between Jupiter and the Sun have to do with the geotectonics of Earth? The analogy distills the system into something that we can comprehend by testing it with our bodies rather than just our minds. Hold a string that is a couple of feet long and is attached to a small ball. Swing the ball around until it is moving in a circle. Can you continue swinging the ball in a circle at the same speed without swinging your hand in a circle? No, and you will notice that the circle that your hand makes about a common point of rotation with the ball is much smaller than the circle that the ball makes. Your hand is acting like the Sun in this system. Now also notice that the string between your hand and the ball has a tensile force in it. That centripetal force is equal to the ball’s mass times the square of its velocity, divided by its distance to the “barycenter”. What happens when you spin the ball faster? This centripetal force gets larger, and to do this the radius between the “barycenter” and your hand must get smaller as your hand speeds up. Kepler found this relationship when he discovered that the planets move in elliptical orbits.

What does this have to do with the Earth? Well, the weight of the ball at the end of the string is mostly Jupiter. It can be said though that it is also all of the other stuff in the solar system other than the Sun, and the length of the string is the distance between the center of the Sun and the “center of mass” of everything else. When the distance between the Sun and the barycenter gets smaller, the velocity of the sun relative to the barycenter increases, and the centripetal force exerted on the ball gets larger. The converse of this statement is also true that, the distance between the center of planetary mass and the barycenter gets smaller, the velocity of the planetary mass relative to the barycenter increases, and the centripetal force exerted on the Sun gets larger. Thus angular momentum is conserved. So if the force between the planetary mass and the Sun gets larger, and the Earth is part of this mass, then the force exerted between the Sun and the Earth gets larger. The shape of the Earth must change when it is subjected to a higher centripetal force according to the principles of material mechanics. If the Earth is changing shape, even by a few feet, this change must be accounted for by deforming its surface from where it was initially. Hence, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions could result in either increased frequency, magnitude, or both. Conversely, this additional force may act to squeeze everything together resulting in a noticeable decrease in geotectonic activity.

This is all a very neat hypothetical situation that hinges on the premise that the Sun’s distance to the barycenter changes. We must ask ourselves, “Does it change?” A geologist from Australia named Rhodes Fairbridge answered this question. Beginning in 1950, he began to research a unique geological phenomenon along the coast Western Australia and subsequently the coast of the Hudson Bay in Canada as well as other places around the world. His conclusion was that there had been substantial changes in the climate and the sea level over recent geological time that caused these unique phenomena. Furthermore, he put forth the possibility that these environmental factors were highly periodic.

Through a lifetime of research and continual cross-disciplinary coordination, he discovered several things. First, he discovered that the Sun’s characteristic radiation output has varied periodically through time between high activity and relative quiet. In searching for a cause for this observation, he discovered that the Sun’s orbit around the barycenter is not round or even elliptical. Rather, the Sun’s orbit is in the shape of an epitrochoid, which is a circle that contains a tight elliptical loop-the-loop at one point around its circumference, and that these solar variations corresponded to the Sun’s passage through this loop-the-loop. Although Professor Fairbridge focused on the effect that the Sun’s epitrochoidal orbit had on its radiative characteristics, our foregoing discussion reveals that the orbit may also affect the internal inertial forces of the solar system.

Contrary to what I implied above, the Sun approaching the barycenter does not cause the planetary center of mass to approach the barycenter or accelerate. Instead it’s the other way around. When Saturn and Jupiter are in opposition, as they are now in early 2010, the center of planetary mass as well as the Sun’s mass is as close to the barycenter as possible. This positioning of the planetary mass, barycenter, and Solar mass produces the greatest amount of angular velocity as well as centripetal force in the system. Conversely, when Saturn and Jupiter are in conjunction, the system has its least amount of angular momentum and centripetal force as the Sun is at it farthest point from the barycenter.

The potential effects of the Sun’s angular momentum on the solar dynamo and cycles of solar activity are fascinating and could have profound implications on our understanding of the Sun’s impact on our climate. A summary of Professor Fairbridge’s work in this direction of study can be found here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

Additionally, I believe that the centripetal effects on the planets of the solar system produced by this characteristic orbital shape are worth serious consideration as to their possible implications in the study of seismology, volcanology, and geotectonics in general.