Out Of My Mind

Professor: You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Professor: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Professor: My brother died of cancer, even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn’t. How is God good, then? Hmm?
(Student was silent)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Professor: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From.. God.
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Professor: So who created evil?
(Student didn’t answer)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immortality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them?
(Student had no answer)
Professor: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son.. have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your God.
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God, for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.
Professor: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, Science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my Faith.
Professor: Yes, Faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as Heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as Cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student: No, sir, there isn’t.
(The Lecture Theatre became very quiet with this turn of events)
Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 Degrees below Zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of Heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was a pin-drop silence in the Lecture Theatre)
Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student: You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have Low Light, Normal Light, Bright Light, Flashing Light… But if you have No Light constantly, you have nothing and it’s called Darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, You would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is, your Philosophical Premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student: Sir, you are working on the Premise of Duality. You argue there is Life and then there is Death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the Natural Evolutionary Process, yes of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed Evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going)
Student: Since no one has ever observed the Process of Evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a Scientist but a Preacher?
(The class was in uproar)
Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter)
Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? .. No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable and Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on Faith, son.
Student: That is it, sir.. exactly! The link between man and God is Faith. That is all that keeps things alive and moving!

  It has been said that the student was Albert Einstein. It wouldn’t surprise me. Einstein was a man of science and a man of faith.

  I have read this before, but I never get tired of reading it. As a person of great faith who also loves science, I have often struggled with what always seemed to be opposites. In truth, God and science-faith and reason, they coexist. You cannot have one without the other. Science can only explain so much-there are things far beyond human understanding-and that is where we must either turn TO God, or turn FROM Him.

 Reason and Faith are inseparable. How can someone believe in something they cannot see, touch, taste, smell, feel? Where an atheist sees an intangible enigma, a believer sees God in every detail of the universe.

 How do you explain earth’s position in our galaxy? It is perfectly placed. Far enough away from the sun that we don’t boil, yet close enough that we don’t freeze. The moon is the precise size, shape and distance it needs to be to keep the tides on our planet in perfect balance. We have all the ingredients for life on this planet, and this planet alone- I am not going to hypothesize about the possibilities of life in other galaxies since no one has shown up yet.

 Look at the diversity of life. On this one rock we have elephants and gnats, blue whales and caterpillars. In every region there is flora and fauna that can only exist in that one environment.

 Can I see God? Yes, I can. I see Him in the beauty of a sunrise over a mountain, and in the constellations at night. I see Him in the face of every child, and in the histories of every elderly person.

 Can I touch God? I believe I do every time I pet my dog or hug my mom. Where would I be without my mom’s gentle touch when I was little and scraped my knee, or her rubbing my back when my world is falling apart? How would I be able to face a new day without my dog licking me into happiness. Her kisses are sometimes the only things that keep me going.

 Can I taste God? Yes- in every bite of food and sip of water. Food gives me fuel to get through the day and water keeps me cool. There are things I’m allergic to, things I can’t eat or drink, but I can always find something to fill me up, and there is always chocolate.

 Can I smell God? Yes. With every breath. I smell Him in the fragrant plants that grow here- in the scent of my dad’s aftershave and my mom’s perfume and the smell of the fur around Belle’s ears. I smell Him in the freshly washed laundry and the lotion I always splurge on.

 Can I feel God? Yes, with every fiber of my being. When I think I can’t possibly go on, I find strength that wasn’t there before. When I am full of love, compassion, anger, distress, worry, fear-when I am throwing myself a pity party and am suddenly reminded of all that is good in my life, that is when I feel God.

  When I can’t make sense of anything else in the world, I can turn to God and know all is OK, because He’s in control and He works everything to His purpose. Happiness is not the absence of misery, it is believing that, no matter how bad things get, there is always, always some good.

 I know that for some people faith alone is not enough. Usually though, even those people take SOMETHING on faith- whether it’s the Big Bang theory or evolution or the people they feel love them- they believe those things with no more empirical evidence than I have for God.

 Bad things happen. But so do miracles. There is hatred in this world, but there is also love. People commit unspeakable acts of cruelty, and remarkable acts of kindness.

 Who would I be if I hadn’t experienced the heartbreaks and tragedies of my life? Who would I be if I hadn’t experienced the love of my parents, my family, my friends? How would I be able to get up every day and face the world, if I didn’t believe in a greater purpose and a higher power?

 Faith IS reason and science is the language of God.

No one reads this blog, especially not when I post at 1 a.m. so I feel somewhat safe in letting just a small part of my guard down. There are only 3 people in this world aside from myself who have any idea what all I’m going through right now. My parents know, but they have no idea how to handle the situation. My eldest sister knows, and she’s actually really good at these things, but she’s in Iowa which might as well be Mars. I’ve thought about telling a friend, but which one? We’re all so interlaced with each other that I might as well tell all of them, and I’m not ready for that. The few friends I have outside of the computer either live too far away, or we’re just not that close, or I don’t want to burden them. That’s the real heart of the issue. Burdens. I’ve always felt like one, like I don’t quite belong in this world, like I take too much and give too little in return. I’ve felt like I’m absolutely worthless for most of my life, and I just figured out why. But the why is the burden I don’t want to lay on anyone else. I have felt like I’m at the breaking point more times in the past 3 weeks than I have in the 5 years of endless medical problems I’ve had. I want to bust out of my skin. I want to climb to the top of a mountain and scream. I want to cry until my body can no longer produce tears. I want to run away. I want to be reckless. I want to do something stupid and crazy. I want to curl up in a ball and wither away. And all I can do is sit here, with parents who love me but are out of their league, and a spirit that has been pulverized a million times in a thousand different ways, and is left gasping for air. I never knew that a secret could cause so much pain. This secret that has been buried within me for so very long has broken my heart in a way none of the real, and rather public heartbreaks have before. I am once again reminded of the line in “New Moon” where Bella is on the flight home with Edward and absolutely convinced he’s going to leave her again as soon as possible. “After all, how many ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to keep beating? I’d lived through a lot….but it didn’t make me feel strong. Instead, I felt horribly fragile, like one word could shatter me.”

Something has been bothering me a lot in the days since the shooting in Tucson. Of course, the event itself “bothers” me-it does more than that, it breaks my heart. What has been bugging me is this: Within hours of the world learning the name of the gunman, there were literally DOZENS of people coming forward saying they knew Jared Loughner was crazy and several said they were afraid he would commit a violent act.His professor even said that he was afraid to turn his back to Loughner, fearing the man would shoot him or something of the kind. Emails from fellow students emerged, expressing similar fears and stating that Loughner was obviously insane. The police were called to the campus FIVE times and, finally, after Loughner had posted a YouTube video of himself walking around campus, rambling on in incoherent sentences and referring to the school as his “Genocide school” Loughner was kicked out and told he could only return if he could provide documentation stating he was mentally well. I cannot tell you how many interviews I’ve heard with people who knew Loughner saying that he started showing signs of serious mental disturbance around his Sophomore year of High School. Over and over again, people have stated that they KNEW he was insane and several admitted to being afraid that he might become violent. And yet, know one-not a single person-ever did anything about it. This young man was allowed to walk the streets of Tucson every day, while dozens of people knew he was insane. He was allowed to acquire a weapon because he passed the background check. He had no record of being institutionalized, because he never was. This young man literally frightened his classmates and his professors and no one DID anything to get him help. Of course, Loughner is ultimately the one responsible for killing 6 people and wounding 13 others-I’m not debating that. I’m simply confounded as to why I haven’t heard/read/seen a single interview with someone who claimed to have known Loughner was crazy and/or dangerous, where the person was asked “Why didn’t you say something?” For at least 6 years, this man displayed hallmark signs and symptoms of serious mental illness and slipped through the cracks. I want to know WHY. Why, in all those years, with all those incidents, did no one speak up and say “This young man is disturbed.” What is it about our society that makes it a bigger sin to question someone’s sanity than to know someone is insane and say nothing. I know this- tragedies don’t happen in a vacuum. There are always missed opportunities and simple human error. I also know that 6 innocent people are know dead, and countless others have had their lives inexorably and violently altered. This is bigger than just one incident of violence committed by a madman. It’s an opportunity for all of us to look around and ask “What can I do?” What can I do to prevent another Tucson from happening? We have to get over our fears of being politically incorrect if there is ever to be real change. We have to be willing to be wrong a thousand times so that we can be right the one time it counts. We have to be willing to stand up not just for ourselves and our families, but for people we have never met. We have to be willing to speak up, so that no more innocent voices are silenced.

I’ve recently decided that I’m not going to follow Twitter on my phone any more. I use the TweetDeck app to follow both Twitter and Facebook. Now it’s set to just show me updates from Facebook. My reason is as follows:

I spend at least one hour every day just checking my Twitter feed. One whole hour out of every day. At the least. That’s 365 hours a year.

Most of the Tweets are either repetitive or pointless. I am NOT talking about my friends. Let me make that clear. If I didn’t want to know what’s going on with my friends, I wouldn’t have any social networking site. What usually takes so long is all the RTs and the celebrities I follow. Yes, I could un-follow the celebrities, but I’m afraid I’m addicted to their antics. That’s not healthy.

A lot of the Tweets make me mad. Again, for the most part, I am only referring to celebs, when someone I know and love says something that makes me mad, I usually am able to put it into context and let it go. Not always.

 I follow a LOT of authors. Even if I quit following every author, I would still see their Tweets pop up as RTs on friends’ Twitters. I don’t like spoilers or teasers or anything like that. Yes, it’s been a lot of fun looking at the pics of the hot models who are in the coming CoFA trailer, but it also takes away part of my enjoyment of the books. I LIKE waiting until the book is in my hand (or Nook). That’s just how I am.

I’m going through a LOT right now. More than anyone other than my mom and my sister know. I need to spend my time focusing on healing myself. Everyone is aware of my physical medical problems, but there are a LOT of psychological scars from everything I’ve been through that I’m just now beginning to fully appreciate.

 With that said, I won’t be deleting my Twitter account. I will probably pop in once or twice when I log on to my computer. I also know myself well enough to know that if I delete it, I’ll just want it back and the cycle starts itself over.

I will still be on Facebook and Tumblr, and you can text me if you want (however, if you’re in another country, I won’t be texting you back as I am poor, poor, poor! LOL!)

 I hope this makes sense to everyone. Remember, I love you all dearly. I don’t know where I’d be today if I didn’t have such an amazing circle of friends. I wouldn’t have been able to get through having cancer if I didn’t have you all making me laugh on a daily basis, and making me feel loved every second of the day. I hope y’all hang with me as I embark on this long journey of finally healing my body AND my mind.

<3

Tippy