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Bendable is Mendable
by Thom Hunter from http://thom-signsofastruggle.blogspot.com/
Science was never my strong subject and it only got worse when I realized how blended scienceand math are. Compounded confusion.I prefer creative, fuzzy excuses and explanations for the questions of life. The neat equationsand inarguable conclusions of science are not very appealing to me. When I was student, Ididn't want anything proven on a blackboard, and I certainly didn't want to have to memorizetables and facts for tests. To me, it was enough to know that most leaves emerge in the spring,grow bigger through the summer, change color in the fall, dry out and fall in the winter and werevolve continuously from soft and shady coolness to dry and brittle cold. I didn't care aboutphotosynthesis. I appreciated the fact some leaves hang out year-round, particularly in placeslike Florida and California, but I'm not sure why they do that.I had no problem with the belief that God created light just by speaking and that Thomas AlvaEdison invented the light bulb through trial and error about 130 years ago. I am fascinated withstories about the speed of light being 168,000 miles a second, but prefer fuzzy explanationsover scientific realities. My head has trouble grasping that shiny things I see moving slowly inthe night sky are doing so somewhere in the past . . . or is it the future? And, when I see red orblue or black or white, I see red or blue or black or white . . . not a myriad of blended colors.
 
But the reality of refraction does fascinate me. I like the idea that light bends. That somethingso pure and powerful can be fooled. Sometimes the light we see is significantly changed fromthe light that started its journey to our sight. It gets distorted. Sometimes the light itself changes the way we see other things. That's why when you stand a pencil in a glass of water itlooks like the pencil is bent. It's not. It's still straight. It's just refracted, our perception of itimpacted by the water and the light. We see it differently than it really is. Just so you'll know,what happens is that the light -- which was traveling at 168,000 miles per hour -- suddenly runsinto the water -- which slows it down to 140,000 miles an hour -- and everything suddenlychanges. It doesn't stop; it just slows down and things change. It's affected by its environment.That's what happens to some of us in real life. We're moving at a pretty well-established andvery normal -- for humans -- clip and then we run into something that changes us. We don'tstop moving; it's just a different pace. It seems almost the same, but feels and looks a littledifferent, a little misaligned. Sometimes it affects us in small ways; sometimes it sends usspinning wildly out of control. We seem to be not what we were.Think about it; when you stand in the swimming pool in the water it can appear that the toppart of your body does not line up with the bottom half. You're misaligned. I can certainlyrelate to that science. You
appear 
different than you really are. Imagine if you just acceptedthat and walked around misaligned all the time, trying to go through life with mismatchedhalves of your self? Hmmmm. So . . .is the half 
in
the water the right half, or the one
above
the water? Or, are there really two halves at all? Aren't I still just me? Am I still whole?When you look at the moon reflected over the lake at night it looks squashed and spread acrossthe surface, yet, look up: the moon is as round as ever in the sky. Rainbows are an example of refraction, just plain old white light that met something somewhere on its way down and splitinto a myriad of colors. Still, it's just light. (Some science person is bound to correct me here.)Same-sex attraction is a bit like refraction, though I doubt my science teachers would haveexplained it that way. God creates us to be attracted to other people. It's not a bad thing.People were not meant to be alone, but to be in relationships with others, and eventually, for
 
most of us, that means pairing off in one specific -- that being God-specified -- monogamousrelationship for life. He created light and He created you and He created me. In this fallenworld, where he also created (allowed) free-will, like light, we all can be bent, or refracted.Sometimes it just depends on what we run into.We live in a world where people bend each other. When I was a child I had a Gumby. He couldbe twisted and posed and tossed and tangled up in himself, but he could always be restored tohis regular old Gumby-self. One of the most unrealistic things about Gumby, even more thanthe fact you could tie his legs over his head, was that no matter what you did to him, his smilenever turned into a frown. I could get angry and wad Gumby up in my fist and he still smiledback. People do that too . . . they take others' lives and, sometimes intentionally, other timesnot, wad them up in their fists to leave them mangled, tossing them aside . . . now on theirown to straighten themselves out. A lot of people are like Gumby, they just smile through it,but remain twisted inside no matter how well they unbend to present themselves to others.Gumby, the pencil in the glass, the rainbow in the sky, you or me in the pool. They're alldistortions of what's real. They're all refractions, distractions, misperceptions. They'reroadblocks. They seem undoable. You may feel like you're tied in a Gumby-like knot, but youcan be untied. Unfolded. Bent back in shape to resemble more the original you; the vision of the Creator. Does it mean you'd never struggle again? Wow, it would be so nice to guaranteethat. A better guarantee is this: God never walks away from someone who is continuing to seekHim. You won't struggle alone unless you choose to do so.You may think you are so misaligned that even if you can untie your legs from above your headand walk again, you can't be forgiven enough to walk out of the pool in one piece, but you canbe. Forgive
enough? 
How about
completely? 
That's how much God loves his creations . . . andyou are one of His best.
"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." -- Psalm103: 11-12.
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