It's been a good week. Busy, but good. Midterms and mid semester projects all crashed down... But I seemed to pull out of it all fairly in tact.
Is anyone else getting sick of school?
School sucks, but field trips are cool. I'm actually writing this post on the way back from Death Valley. It was awesome.
I slept under some of the most breathtaking stars of my life. Just stunning.
I got to thinking a lot about creation, plans, my destiny, why I'm here, what I have already accomplished - you know, all the normal things your brains goes to when you get to sleep out away from the rest of it.
Anyways - as I laid in the dirt, I thought of my sins and thought of what I was going to do about them. Naturally, as I usually do, I started realizing how sucky I am. How pathetic I am. Or, in Nephi's words, oh what a wretched man I am."
Then I rembered somethig my structural geology professor said the week before in some of my test preperation - "no crystal lattice is perfect". Rocks are composed of different minerals. Each mineral forms a crystal lattice that acts as a type of signature; a crystal lattice is how minerals are classified. Each of these lattices has tiny problems or mal-alignments.
He said this and then said, "see, now you don't have to feel so bad about all your problems! Even rocks aren't perfect!" The class laughed and it was kind of cute. It was a nice way to remind us that we will all have things that are hard for us.
But this, COMBINED with the next part of our class discussion, is what really hit me hard.
My professor pointed out this fact about the imperfections because we were learning about fault propagation. When tension is placed on a rock, the first step of the formation of a fault are tiny micro fractures that start at these imperfections in the crystal lattice. These micro fractures grow and form large 'tension' fractures that are parallel to the maximum stress. As the pressure increases, a huge fault rips through all the tension fractures and the rock slips. This is what causes earthquakes as the rock completely busts and slides in response to the load.
So, long story short - earthquakes are results of tiny (I mean, we're talking microscopic level!) imperfections in a crystal lattice.
We all have imperfect crystal lattices. We have personal struggles. We have problems. We don't have to beat ourselves up over it. Nobody is perfect.
However, if we don't pay attention to, and do everything in our power to mitigate and end these problems, we may end up with some earthquakes in our lives.
So, set some good goals to start to heal lattice imperfections and prevent the earthquakes of life.
Thanks brother. This was exactly what I needed to hear. It reminds me of a thought I shared with my family while still in the field. I very clearly remember some deep talks I had with a particular companion of mine. Our discussions were always all over the place, as usual. One time, after quite a long pillow talk.. we got talking about his sister. From the sounds of it she was some rad girl. Still haven’t met her. Anyway, he told me about how his sister was majoring in the arts and was doing some big pottery project. He told me about a Japanese art she was really fascinated with called Kintsukuroi. It is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. rather than repairing with ugly metal staples it would be repaired beautifully with gold seams. supposedly collectors became so fascinated with this style of art when it first came out that they began to deliberately smash pottery to once again repair it with these golden seams. This was new to me but i found that in this simple yet unique style of art, rung profound truth. The truth is we are in the hands of the Divine Potter. as we are broken by our own mistakes and sin, the Atoning Power of Jesus Christ mends broken edges. As we are repaired we become more valuable creatures perfected in Christ. Something that was once somewhat ordinary, our lives, becomes a breathtaking wonder as repaired by the all-powerful King.
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