Fast Explanation

Due to lack of time and lack of interesting questions, I haven’t had much to write as of late. But now that I finally have things to say, I’ll be on a semi-internet fast until August. Blog formatting has been put on hold along with posting. I will be working on posts from time to time, so expect plenty to read come August. Already in the works are two questions (one about Nietzsche and one about word etymology), two book reviews (Rediscovering Paul and The Practice of the Presence of God), and two more happy notes from my senior year of high school. Plenty more will be started over the next month or so. As Tigger would say, ta-ta for now.

Happy Lists

Last year several happy lists emerged from Mr. Rahn's AP calculus class. There were some days when Courtney, Sara, and I simply couldn't listen to calculus anymore, so we passed around sheets of paper and listed things that made us happy. Here's the original list. My additions are in the Trebuchet font, Sara's are in the Georgia font, and Courtney's are in the Courier font.

• •    soup
• •    blue eyes
• •    reading a good book on a rainy day
• •    this pen*
• •    a hillside when its leaves change color
• •    Benny and Joon
• •    the scent of fallen leaves
• •    books/movies that make you cry
• •    chocolate, anytime, anywhere
• •    the wind
• •    perfectly golden roasted marshmallows
• •    doing random things at random times without caring what other people think about it (ex: taking jumping pictures in the rain during lunch)
• •    singing in the rain (both the musical and the actual activity)
• •    singing in general (the girls 100 building bathroom, best acoustics EVER)
• •    feeling good for no reason
• •    climbing trees (especially if I get covered in sap)
• •    trying on clothes at stores and striking poses in the mirror
• •    maria's hat**
• •    the oscillating universe (both the awesome dance move and the woefully obsolete astrophysical hypothesis)
• •    decorating Christmas trees (the good-smelling kind in your living room and x-mas tree shaped cookies)
• •    going through the day with a good song stuck in your head and dancing to it at random moments
• •    walking barefoot in nice, cool mud
• •    the smell of an herb garden
• •    the dog at Imago
• •    Imago in general
• •    harvest moons on midnight-black nights
• •    Halloween
• •    Reese's cups
• •    being in love
• •    being in love with someone who loves you back
• •    playing "Adagio" on the piano
• •    playing any piece in 6-8 time
• •    not playing class music
• •    bubbles
• •    saying "je ne sais pas"
• •    swinging
• •    prismacolor colored pencils
• •    the color of KMnO4
• •    photo booth pics!
• •    separation of photosynthetic pigments on chromatography paper
• •    cozy sweatshirts
• •    caution tape and duct tape
• •    gaff tape and glow tape
• •    the Festival of Lights
• •    any shade of green

* The pen I was using was my teal G2 pen.
** I was wearing my colorful stocking cap from Colombia.

What is a chiasm?

So today I was definitely not sitting in on a class at CCU entitled "Temple and Sacrifice: An Invitation to Approach the Holy One." And I definitely won't be attending it for the rest of the week. And I most certainly did not learn five notebook pages (front and back) worth of exciting things. I thought I'd get that straight first. Just for the record.

Now that we have that out of the way...
I learned all sorts of things, but to keep to my question theme and to keep myself from writing an intolerably long post, I'll just discuss two ancient literary structures I learned about today: the chiasm (about which I asked today's featured question) and the bifid.

The chiastic structure is sort of like a palindrome whose parts are arranged in a specific order to emphasize some points over others. A chiasm must have at least three sections: the beginning (A), the middle (B), and the end related to the beginning (A'). A chiasm can have as many layers as you like, as long as every point except the central point has its complement (ex: A, B, C, D, C', B', A'). The middle section can be split into two related but equally weighted parts (ex: A, B, C, C', B', A'). In a chiasm, the middle part is the most important. The beginning and ending parts are the second most important. All other point fall after these.

Let's look at an example of a chiasm: Deuteronomy 27-28 (the entire book of Deuteronomy is a looser chiasm, and also follows the form of Hittite treaties, but that's a discussion for another time).

A: curses against Israel if they disobey God (27)
B: blessing for Israel if they obey God (28:1-14)
A': more vivid curses against Israel if they disobey God (28:15-68)

When reading this last week for Bible study, I made the mistake that anyone without knowledge of ancient writing structure might make. I assumed that since so much more time was spent on curses than on blessings curses were the focus of this passage. This supports the idea that a lot of people form of God in the Old Testament as a mean and heartless God who is just waiting for a chance to punish us all. The chiasmatic structure of this passage reveals the opposite to be true. The author of Deuteronomy sandwiched blessings between passages on curses to communicate that the blessings are more important, that God longs to bless his people and not to curse them.


And now for bifids. A bifid has two parts, as you can see if you parse this Latin-based word (bi- = two, -fid = split). In a bifid, there are two main points, and the second bears the emphasis. These points are often expounded upon with many sub-points.

As an example, we'll glance at the book of Exodus (which imitates yet distinguishes itself from the tales of conquest inscribed on Egyptian war stela ... again a topic for another time).

Part I: God frees the Israelites from Egypt and leads them to Mt. Sinai. (historical point)
Part II: God gives the law. (theological point)

Although it was important to the writer that God had freed them from the Egyptians, Exodus was written to highlight the interaction between God and his people through the giving of the law.


An understanding of these ancient forms of rhetoric can apparently drastically enrich our understanding of the Bible and any other ancient text. I look forward to learning to recognize them and using them to glean more from scripture.

Can I take this apart?

I love taking things apart, figuring out how they work, and then fixing them. Paper towel dispensers, pens, toys, zippers, Ihop chairs, anything. Today I got to dissect a tape measure.

Josh (who is playing the piano quite wonderfully as I type) and I were taking measurements out in the yard so I can plan the garden, but the tape measure wasn't cooperating. It wouldn't coil back into itself like it should. So I decided I would take it apart to figure out what was wrong. Given my track record with "fixing" things, I decided to wait until my parents got home to ask for permission to disassemble it. On more than one occasion, I have managed to completely destroy something in my efforts to fix it, so I figured I should give them a heads-up before tackling the only tape measure I could find in the house. My mom had no problem with me taking it apart, so I equipped myself with a screwdriver and set about dismantling it.

To explain what I did and why to fix it (yes, I did fix it without breaking it), I will attempt to explain in words how a tape measure works. The tape part of the tape measure is wound around a plastic spool. Inside this plastic spool is coiled a long, thin ribbon of metal that acts as a spring. One end of this ribbon is attached to the plastic spool, and the other end is fed through and wound around a slitted metal pin. When the tape is pulled out, the metal ribbon is coiled tightly around this metal pin. When the tape is released, the ribbon uncoils and the tape is pulled back in. Hopefully that makes sense. If I had thought of it, I would have taken pictures as I went to simplify explanation.

There were, I believe, two problems with the tape measure. First, the loop of metal ribbon that was supposed to hold onto the central pin was broken. This was fixed by removing the broken bit and then feeding the new end through the slot. I'm not positive about this second problem, but I'll give it a try. Just now I've come up with an alternative explanation, but I think my original hypothesis is a still a more robust explanation, so I'll stick with it. As I rewound the metal ribbon, the outer coils (which I couldn't see while I was winding it, for there was a plastic part that covered most of it and kept it from springing out and causing me harm) would periodically slip. I think the outer end of the ribbon isn't properly attached to the plastic spool. It was hard to tell, even when I took the spool apart. It is possible that the tape measure will function even if this is the case.

Once I had fixed the problem of the broken end and the central pin, I began to tightly wind the ribbon again. Then I realized that if I accidentally let go of it, my hand could be shredded by the little bit of ribbon that came through the spool to attach to the tape. I did let go of it accidentally for a split second, but fortunately I caught the plastic part and stopped its spinning. I decided to put on gloves and trade my shorts for pants to protect myself. Precautionary measures typically don't occur to me, so I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking of that.

After this adjustment, I continued to wind the spring. Eventually I reattached the tape the to bit of ribbon coming out of the spool. I let it wind itself up to be more efficient and to test how well I had fixed it. For whatever reason, the coil seems to be losing tension far more quickly than it should, so I kept on having to stop and rewind it. This tape measure may be unfixable, but we will see. Once I had fully wrapped the tape back around the spool, I reassembled the plastic outer shell. I've tested it a bit, and it is now fully capable of retracting the tape if I pull it out a foot or so, but we'll have to wait and see if it still functions properly when the tape is pulled out to its full extent.

Do you want to go look at the double woolly tree?

To my knowledge, there exists no tree known as the double woolly tree, but Amanda was led to believe otherwise.

One day Amanda (my youngest sister) brought home some sort of spiky fruit from a tree and demanded to know the identity of the tree it had come from. My grandpa declared that it was a double woolly. My mom could tell my the look in his eye that he was making it up. Amanda was dubious of that answer, so she led him to the tree to see if his answer changed. It didn't. She still didn't completely believe him until he posted something on Facebook about it. Somehow a post on Facebook makes it official that my grandpa isn't joking. But Amanda still had some reservations about the double woolly. When I got back, the fruit was waiting for me, and I was told that I should go look at it with her sometime to determine its true identity.

Today was that day. My question of the day was the one you read in the title of this post. After Amanda had her snack, we headed out with the tree identification book in hand. Along the way we chatted about all sorts of things. I love hearing about the world from the perspective of an eight-year-old. My discussed everything from possible explanations of the death of a possum in the road to scooter basketball in gym class.

We arrived at the tree in question. I pulled out the dichotomous identification guide and taught Amanda how to use it. Eventually the terminology got too technical so I took over. In the meantime she rambled happily about school. We decided the tree was a bitternut hickory. The walk back home was spent in the same way the walk to the tree was spent. It was a lovely walk on a lovely day with my youngest sister.