Don’t be two-dimensional

Orion Nebula photo, by Hubble telescope

This new Hubble image of the Orion Nebula shows dense pillars of gas and dust that may be the homes of fledgling stars, and hot, young, massive stars that have emerged from their cocoons and are shaping the nebula with powerful ultraviolet light. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team.

Two-dimensional people are flat, dull, and uninteresting. To say someone is two-dimensional is to call them shallow and insult their intelligence. Nobody wants to be considered two-dimensional, really.

I tried to read up a little on dimensions yesterday. Not the two-dimensions, three-dimensions type, the measurements of size and shape that we learned in grade school, but the time-space type. You know, alternate realities, different-existences-other-than-my-own type.

The last time I tried that I got a major brain freeze, mostly because I needed to go back thirty or forty years and start reading all the math and physics available first, right up to the present.

There are lots of scientific theories out there about this subject. Many varieties of scientists and physicists have studied and written about it. If you have enough background information I suppose you might understand the simplest of the simplified versions of one or two of their hypotheses. I don’t have that background.

However, I do know of two dimensions, alternate realities existing in our own time and perhaps even in our own space. I have a personal theory about how they intersect, and how someone human could move freely between the two and survive.

What started this line of thought was a peculiar website I came across while googling “Orion’s belt” recently. Orion is a constellation or group of stars known as the Hunter. Orion’s belt is mentioned in Job chapter 38, in the passage about God putting the dominion of the entire universe here on the earth. Orion’s belt refers to three of those stars that seem to line up in a straight line, forming the Hunter’s belt.

Well, God seems to have chosen this puny little planet earth for his future headquarters so if he wants to run the whole universe from here, why not.

But I was curious about the several constellations mentioned in that Job passage, so I googled them, and discovered http://openSETI.org in the process — the Open Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

This website discusses the SETI project operated by the United States and other groups of individuals and contains many links to articles about supposed extraterrestrial life. Some of what I read there sounds like the rantings of madmen, but some of it sounds quite reasonable.

The home page states, “Open SETI advocates the use of every research discipline and the study of every category of organic and inorganic activity on earth and anywhere else within our view, as a full response to the rich evidence of our involvement with other intelligence – evidence that we have already seen.”

I did not read everything available from that site and probably never will. However, as a Christian I certainly believe that extraterrestrial intelligences have indeed visited earth, lived here and communicated regularly with ordinary human beings. The main one thought it up, designed and created it, and he can come and go as he likes.

If other people want to take the long way around to discover him and develop a working relationship with him, I wish them much success. It’s a fascinating process and relationship well worth the effort.

I think I’ll keep thinking about dimensions, the two I know of, and who knows how many others that I don’t know of – yet. Eternity is a long time, if time is the right word, and there will be plenty of it to explore and discover dimensions and other things in the years / centuries / eons ahead.

Happy 68th birthday, Bob Dylan

Born May 24, 1941, Bob is just two years older than me. I didn’t like him very much back in the day… I was more into Elvis Presley and country music. But no one can deny Bob Dylan’s impact on every genre of music there is in America, including gospel. He is the recipient of many awards, Academy Award nominations, Emmy’s, and others. It is amazing how much talent he has – despite a voice that sounds like chalk screeching on a blackboard.

I looked him up on Wikipedia, and here’s some of what I found. It was a very, very long entry so if you want more about him, you’ll find plenty there.

Bob Dylan’s latest studio album, Together Through Life, was released on April 28, 2009. In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the Billboard 200 chart in the U.S.. Making Bob Dylan (68 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one in the Billboard 200 chart. It also reached number one on the UK album charts, 39 years after Dylan’s previous UK album chart topper New Morning. This meant that Dylan currently holds the record for the longest gap between solo number one albums in the UK chart.

His Never Ending Tour commenced on June 7, 1988, and Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s and the 2000s—a heavier schedule than most performers who started out in the 1960s. By the end of 2008, Dylan and his band had played more than 2100 shows, anchored by long-time bassist Tony Garnier and filled out with talented sidemen.

To the dismay of some of his audience, Dylan’s performances remain unpredictable as he alters his arrangements and changes his vocal approach night after night. Critical opinion about Dylan’s shows remains divided. Critics such as Richard Williams and Andy Gill have argued that Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material.

Others have criticised his vocal style as a “one-dimensional growl with which he chews up, mangles and spits out the greatest lyrics ever written so that they are effectively unrecognizable,” and his lack of interest in bonding with his audience.

Bob Dylan’s European tour of spring 2009 opened in Stockholm on March 22 and ended in Dublin on May 6. His summer tour of the U.S. will begin in Milwaukee on July 1.

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet and painter who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades.

Much of Dylan’s most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, became anthems of both the civil rights movements and of the opposition to the Vietnam War.

America as I knew it

From Commodity Online news, May 22, 2009: “Are you watching the dollar? Maybe the unwinding of the dollar- based paper money system is coming sooner than we expected. Yesterday, the dollar fell again – now it costs $1.37 to buy a euro. And if you want an ounce of gold, it will cost you $937.” There’s a lot more economic news on this site, price of oil going up, etc., etc. Not good news for America and her citizens, unless you happen to be selling gold and oil, or buying US dollars.

America as I knew it growing up is gone, and I don’t think it’s coming back. My father was a WWII veteran, and most of my uncles were too. Daddy was a glider pilot and aircraft mechanic in the Army Air Force; three of mama’s brothers were in the Navy. They had to learn how to use weapons, the best America had to offer, to fight and win that war.

My brother served in the Navy too, stationed on an ammunition ship in the Mediterranean during Israel’s Six Days War. A Russian destroyer followed close behind them the whole time, defying the usual safety distance of a mile, the radius of destruction if the ship blew up. The weapons he used in that war were different – weapons of codes and communications, airwave, radiowave weapons. Effective.

Because of our family involvement in the defense of our nation, I have always been interested in American history and current affairs. Even as a young girl I followed government and politics, watching every televised political convention, listening to speeches and news on the radio, reading newspaper and magazine accounts and editorials.

Today I read news about global current events online, getting a broader view of political events from religious and secular sites, as well as “first-hand” accounts of some reporters and bloggers overseas.

Of course, these days I read news – and opinions about the news – with a bias, reading between the lines and taking note of what is included, what is omitted.

How many Americans know (or believe) that there is a global spiritual war going on? How many think if we just elect somebody different, things will change for the better?

Better for some is defined as more money, more power, more influence. For some, better means more future security, or more free time to pamper ourselves, our spouses and our children.

Maybe America has gotten better in some of those respects since WWII, with a few ups and downs here and there. That’s what gives people the idea that it can still get better, despite the current economic and political conditions worldwide.

I doubt it. I think Matthew 24 was written for our times and it doesn’t predict better. Wars. Rumors of wars. Nations rising against nations. Famines. Diseases. Earthquakes.

So, “What, me worried?” No. I’m looking up, staying watchful. Not just accepting all the bad things as inevitable, however. I pray for specific people and for specific things to happen or to be prevented. As long as I’m still here, that’s one of my assignments as a believer in Christ.

But I don’t think the republic of America as our forefathers envisioned and instituted is going to survive unchanged, and I don’t think the change it is undergoing is for the better.

I think the spiritual battle is heating up, and if you don’t know how to use the weapons of this warfare, you’re going to get hurt.

I’m an X-Men fan…

I have just seen X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the second time, and I’m a bigger fan than I already was.

Science fiction and fantasy were favorite reading materials in my home growing up… they belonged to my parents. Most of the well-known writers were represented, some of whom were scientists and physicists and researchers, as well as authors.

I was attracted by the fact that so much of what had been fiction a few years earlier had become fact. Over these last 50+ years, much more of the science fiction/fantasy I read as a teenager has become fact, practical applications that today we take for granted.

Which isn’t to say that X-Men will do likewise. But there is a story line to all these episodes, even if some reviewers seem to miss it. Several subplots involving different sets of characters. Lots of action, good versus evil. Some romance and some tragedy.

And there is science in there too: dark scientific and military applications most of us would consider impossible to achieve, and too evil to contemplate. World War II should teach us not to underestimate monsters in human form…

So far none of the multiple reviews I’ve read even hint at recognizing a spiritual thread running through the story. Yet one comes through quite clearly and obviously to me.

I asked the Lord one day why some Christians (myself included) are so fascinated by the supernatural. His answer came back instantly – “Well, duh…” as if I shouldn’t even have to ask that question.

No, I guess I already know why. Our God is a supernatural being. We have a violent, evil, deceiving enemy out to destroy us. One who at times may look like an ordinary human being; one who can make a lie sound convincing, deceiving us, pulling us in. We shouldn’t be taken in, but too often we are.

After seeing Wolverine the first time, I went out and bought the other three movies on DVD. I have now watched each one several times, making mental notes of some things in those that make scenes from this prequel suddenly more meaningful.

And I find them not just entertaining, but a vivid, albeit fantastic reminder that there is indeed another world around us. Another real world, more menacing than anything portrayed in these fantasy movies. It’s one we will all be forced to acknowledge and confront some day, maybe sooner than we think.