The Test2

I failed the test. Good thing it won't be the last one.

I have failed so many math tests, taken Calculus II about three times. But my first degree is in mathematics. Riemann Sums is pure evil! I was actually so angry about it that I took my silver Thomas' Calculus book and ripped out the 30 or so pages on the topic: Infinite rectangles added together to determine the area under a curve...is pure insanity! An idea impossible to grasp...nearly as hard as an inductive proof in topology...back then, my head could not handle the infinite. But oh, how I loved to show off my knowledge of mathematical symbols and shorthand to write out theorems and axioms that I had memorized...I was such a math snob!
Anyone read Landau?:
"This course is dedicated to the bifurcation diagrams in the framework of the Ginzberg-Landau theory. The aim is to characterize the properties of solutions according to the different free parameters: existence of non-trival solutions, number of solutions, stability and symmetry..."

Hey, I was married to a man who talked like this ALL the TIME! And boy did I feel cool when I understood him...and almost cool when I created an illusion that I understood what he was talking about...

But even being able to pretend that I knew what was going on took work. Being way too smart for my britches in high school and being a classic under-achiever, I never had to work to make A's, and besides, boys were not interested in smart girls. I had to dumb myself down to get dates. It was the way of the world.

Some part of me still wanted to learn. Especially at TAMU, where I fell absolutely in love with the library there. Drowning in books on every subject imaginable made me a whole lot more excited than the cute guy walking in the quad in tight jeans...Ah, I was a nerd and didn't know it...but actually having to WORK for knowledge was a totally new and unexplored concept!

Once I realized that I needed to do the homework, read the books and show up to class, I started to make nothing but A's. But it took me a long time and a whole lot of pain to learn that lesson. To tell you that I tend to do things the hard way shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Some part of me believes that the most beautiful artwork is often the result of multiple failures. But then, of course I would think that way.

How many wrong notes did it take for me to learn the Ave Maria? Too many to count!

Heavens, consider the art of singing. I remember the first time I decided to sing the Alleluia before the gospel during daily Mass. It was quite awful. In fact, it was so awful that one woman came up to me after Mass and gently asked me to not sing again. I sheepishly went up to the priest and said I had been asked to not sing anymore. He told me, with a small smile, that I should keep trying. And you know what, I learned how to not be afraid and then, to accept the wrong notes and once I relaxed, many right notes came along and I learned to not worry about all the wrong ones.

How can we learn anything if not by a long series of wrong notes? That's a big deal for me. I grew up Catholic. The nuns stressed neatness and perfection. Many rewards for the 'perfect kids.' Lots of homework for the rest of us. I grew up with parents who considered the grade 97 to be unimpressive. My ex-father-in-law told me once, after I told him how I bowled a 197, "Come back and tell me when you bowl 200." There was the idea that the house had to be spotless, clothes neat and ironed, teeth straight, weight...ah, well...

Set high expectations and the student will rise to the occasion. I suppose that works most of the time. But sometimes, it really tears a person down. Expecting the perfect from ourselves is a guarantee for failure. Doing the best we can is good, providing that we accept the best we can and not dwell too much or perhaps not at all, on how we could have done better.

Pride is the most horrible sin of all...at least it is for me because it pops up everywhere in my life. Everything I have done that has turned out badly I can trace back to the sin of pride.

I want to be right. I want to be good. I want to be the best. I want to be the favorite. But that animal pride is not even satisfied with those accomplishments if you manage to get them. There is always a next level. There is never satisfaction. It is a monster that keeps eating up everything in sight and never stops being hungry.

It is like a "tribble" (cf. Star Trek) only it isn't funny or cute.

Perfection is found only in God. The rest of us have to settle for 'close.' But exactly where in any of our lifestyles do we cut ourselves a break and learn to be happy with the less than perfect of anything?
Who wants a bumper sticker that says, "Happy with with what I have" on it? We are supposed to "strive for the narrow gate," and yet we are told at the same time that only by God's grace alone will we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

We are told that we are supposed to forgive "seventy times seven" and we are told that there will be a time when the door will close and He will say to us "I don't know you."

So exactly which answer is right? Which statement is true?

And the answer, after a math degree and a theology degree, I can say is "yes."

Aquinas and Aristotle are only partly right here. Maybe Plato is more right, but I'm not going to say for sure. Linear thinking will only lead us into a two-dimensional heaven. That means flat to those of you who don't want to think about it. It means a piece of paper, only even a piece of paper has depth to it. Heaven is infinite. Heaven is perfect. Heaven is pure. Nothing about us humans can even begin to grasp what that might be like. And defining God? Well, I think He kind of smiles at our "crayon pictures" like a proud father and puts it on the fridge, knowing that we did our best.

And that of course is the answer. Doing out best. That doesn't mean over-doing or under-doing. It doesn't come with a scale, a grade, a gold star. It isn't being compared to the kid sitting next to us. There isn't a curve and there are no A's.

But loving one another matters. Love is not:
I Corinthians 13:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially,but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

From the movie "Contact:"
"Did you love your your father?"
"Of course I loved my father."
"Prove it."

Take the test. Fail the test. Take it again.

Love, Cindy