On vision

There is this older guy that I know only by what is written* about him. He died a long time ago, but from what is written about him, he sounds like someone I would have liked to know. This is a speech he wrote down before he spoke it one Fourth of July toward the end of his life:

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Children-
When I was a young man the Lord came to me and put His hand just here on my right shoulder. I can feel it still. And He spoke to me, very clearly. The words went right though me. He said, Free the captive. Preach good news to the poor. Proclaim liberty throughout the land. That is all Scripture, of course, and the words were already very familiar to me at the time. But it is clear enough why He would feel they needed special emphasis. No one lives by them, unless the Lord takes him in hand. Certainly I did not, until the day He stood beside me and spoke those words to me.

I would call that experience a vision. We had visions in those days, a number of us did. Your young men will have visions and your old men will dream dreams. And now all those young men are old men, if they're alive at all, and their visions are no more than dreams, and the old days are forgotten long before we are.

The President, General Grant, once called Iowa the shining star of radicalism. But what is left here in Iowa? What is left here in Gilead? Dust. Dust and ashes. Scripture says the people perish, and they certainly do. It is remarkable. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His Hand is stretched out still.

The Lord Bless you and keep you, etc.
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I have written before about this project being a vision. if you have been reading this blog for a while, you would have noticed that I changed the title to the first entry from 'the vision', to 'the purpose'; I am still not resolved as to what the title should be.

In graduate school, I worked at one of the worlds leading visualization research labs (VRAC, Iowa State University, go Cyclones). Part of my project was to figure out how to create an image in three dimensional space that would describe multi-dimensional equations. We see things in three dimensions. Math uses equations to describe complex systems with equations have more than three dimensions. So part of my job was to figure out how to render images of these multi-dimensional equations so that we could interact with them and see how the shape changes as variables change. I was not very successful creating anything of value in this part of my research, but I had good coffee and muffins in the small room where I defended my thesis, and I think the aroma satisfied my professors enough that they let it slide. Although I think there is a solution to this problem, no one to my knowledge has found a good one, so I hope anyone who has tried to present a solution also has good coffee in the room. It's helpful if the presentation is made first thing in the morning; academics are notorious for working late nights.

After studying that problem, I concluded that a vision was something I could re-create in the form of an equation, and ultimately something that could be conveyed through a projector to a screen. Like TV. In a world where tele-visions are the primary media in which I receive a majority of the information that forms my perspective of reality, I have come to expect that any-vision will come by paying 90 bucks a month to Time-Warner. And since I am too busy to receive my vision when they have scheduled to transmit it, I pay an extra 5 bucks a month for the ability to record the visions and watch them commercial free when it is convenient for me. Just as an interesting side note, 'tele' is Greek prefix meaning distant. I looked up the Greek word for 'vision', and found one definition that read, 'the power of sight'. I never thought of sight as a power...I wonder what other secret powers I don't know about.

The speech above caused me think about visions in the form of an experience. An experience is more like art than math. Although, I would argue that math and art have a high correlation, but that is for another thought. Free Lunch is the product of a journey. The journey is an expedition to discover the unknown. An exploration of the places where truth and beauty and love and understanding are hidden. An excavation of ancient ruins to find out what remains of lives and cultures from history. When light hits the unearthed artifacts that remain, maybe I will know what will remain from my life and my community. These are all things I want to experience in my life.

I am having trouble creating some thing that renders the whole vision of Free Lunch, when I try, the vision eludes my description. It’s like trying to use a bucket to skim oil off the top of a lake. When I lift my bucket up thinking I have all the oil contained, I look back and the oil I didn't get has once again re-covered the small amount I was able to scoop up. I use the same method to try again...this vision is expansive.

It doesn't matter what you believe about life and death and God, but the Scripture that was referenced in the speech has been one of the most studied collection of letters and stories ever written. I think that so many people have studied it (regardless of belief) because it contains this mysterious power to speak to you wherever you are at on your journey, at whatever depth you are traveling. And no matter what depth you are at, or what depth you think you are at, its depths are not charted by any earthly map. My point is not to get you to read the Bible, but to draw some conclusion as to why I am compelled to write about Free Lunch. I like the stories in the Bible. I know a little more about who wrote them, and the people they are about when I read them.

I write because I want to be known. I want to share my life with the people I care about. I want to open the doors to the parts of my life that I have a hard time talking about in conversation (which is nearly everything, I am shy in a crowd). I write because it is the best I can do to convey a vision that I think is worth sharing. I won't be able to do it well, and that is why I am not satisfied to let this vision turn in to a dream. I am going to do my best to experience it. I hope the remains that are found one thousand years from now are more than a pile of dust and ashes.

*Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, see also, Gilead