Procrastinator’s Clock

[Procrastinator's Clock

I very rarely click on ads on webpages, but this one had a t-shirt with “Calculus” written across the front. To be honest, there are just not that many neat math t-shirts out there that I like. But this one was cool enough to warrant further investigation.

Following a link or two lead me to MathShirts.com and the Procrastinator’s Clock. How perfect! I don’t know if it fits me or my students more. Plus, it is a perfect logarithmic scale too. I wonder if the clock mechanism is in sync with the numbers, that is, it goes slower and slower as it approaches 12 and then speeds up again? Or should that be the other way around? That would be way cool!

The question now becomes, will I ever get around to ordering it?

Best line I have heard about procrastination: I’ve always wanted to be a procrastinator.

Burning Thirst

God says (in part of this poem):

I am independent of all purity and impurity,
Of all laziness and all diligence in worship.
I haven’t ordered my worship to profit from it,
But to bestow a benefit upon My servants.
I am not sanctified by their glorification:
It is they who become sanctified and pure.
I do not consider the tongue and its words;
I look at the spirit and character.
I look into the heart to see if it’s evil;
The heart’s the essence, words only the accident:
The accident’s accessory, the essence is what matters.
How many more phrases, ideas, metaphors, can I stand?
It’s burning I want, true burning! Become burning’s friend!
Fire your soul with the passion of adoration:
Destroy with this fire all thought and expression.
Those who know conventions are of one kind—
Those whose souls and spirits burn are another.

— Rumi, Mathnawi [via]

To mix metaphors:

God thirsts for your love, not because you are His waters of everlasting life, but because you are the thirst, He the waters. He needs you only because you need Him.

— Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen [via]

Love, Peace, Energy

Love brings peace.
Peace brings patience,
    Dispels fear,
        Lifts up hope,
            Deepens faith,
                Extends trust,
                    Creates a space
                        For forgiveness
                            And acceptance;
Thus energizing love
    To flow to others.

Bible Meme

I do not do many memes, but I like this one found at Happy Catholic.

1. Who is your favorite Biblical personage, other than Jesus?
It is hard to narrow down to one person. Near the top of the list are Jacob (don’t think he would be considered a saint by the church’s standards today considering some of the things he did), Job, Jonah, Tobiah, and Judas Maccabeus. Peter, John, Paul, and Mary are at the top.

2. What is your favorite book of the Old Testament?
For praying, Psalms. For the story, Tobit because it is kind of like a behind the scenes look in the way God is always with us from a Jewish perspective. For the mysticism of the lover and the beloved, Song of Songs.

3. What is your least favorite book of the Old Testament?
I have not read all of the books of the Old Testament, but of the ones I have read, it would have to be the first part of Numbers. All those lists. Oey vey!

4. What is your favorite non-gospel book of the New Testament?
Acts of the Apostles

5. What is your life verse?
Not familiar with the term “life verse”, but these three verses have been beacons of light and hope for me:

You have been told, O man, what is good,
    and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do the right and to love goodness,
    and to walk humbly with your God.
— Micah 6:8 (see post)

I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.
— Philippians 4:13

Pause a while and know that I am God.
— Psalm 46:10 (see post)

Desires and Order

In Luke 10:27, Jesus quotes scripture:

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

This one sentence, this one command, represents the three dimensions of spirituality: vertical, horizontal, and inward. This also implies an order: love God first, others second, myself third.

In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius talks about disordered desires. The Buddhists try to eliminate all desire because they believe desire is the cause of suffering, thus their emphasis on detachment. St. Ignatius calls us to detachment from things in the world too, but instead of eliminating the human need to desire, he embraces it. If our desires are ordered, then we will be inline with God’s will, and that is what our ultimate desire should be. For in following God’s will, the Christian believes we will be happy and blessed.

The trick now becomes to order our desires. Something that we cannot do on our own. It takes grace. Our desires will never be completely, perfectly ordered on this side of heaven, but we can come close with God’s help. First things first…

Possible paths to explore and meditate:

  • This is one aspect of what Catholics call sanctification, the process of being made perfect and holy, to become a full brother or sister of Jesus, capable of living in heaven and seeing God face to face. “Being saved” is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process.

  • The process is not completed on earth (usually?), thus the need for Purgatory to bring the purification process to ordered perfection.

  • To examine ones life, to know oneself at the deepest levels is to uncover the hidden desires of our hearts and try to order them with prayer and grace, thus bringing us closer to God. (The inward dimension of spirituality)

  • Loving God and loving your neighbor, on the surface, appear to be two different things. But on a deeper level, they are the same thing. (See Matthew 25:31-46) If you know God is in everyone, how do you love them without putting them above God?

Father, help me to desire Your will, to put my desires in order, to detach from the unnecessary things in life, and to reflect Your love to others around me.