Genius

Read this in my Roman Civ textbook and couldn't pass it by:

"Every man has his own customs and his own religious practices. Similarly, the divine mind has given to different cities different religious rites which protect them. And, just as each man receives at birth his own soul, so, too, does each nation receive a genius [guardian spirit] which guides its destiny."
-Symmachus, Dispatches to the Emperor

That passage was written in the year 384, as part of a protest against Christianity's rising dominance in Rome.
It caught my eye because Symmachus mentions the idea of national spirits, which the Bible mentions in passing in Daniel:
"I have come to answer your prayer. But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia." -Daniel 10:12/13

One subject that I have always wanted to learn more about is the intersection between Judaism and Greek culture/religion. Because I think that it must exist somewhere. Here we have a late-era Roman senator fighting against Christianity, and using language that we generally don't accept in Western thought, but that would have made perfect sense in Daniel's time.

Daniel presents us with the idea that nations are alive, that they have representatives outside of the physical world, and that they fight each other.
This is very much like Greek and even the Roman view of the gods.

I continue to believe that modern christianity has lost the vast nuance of ancient understanding somewhere in our quest for systematic theology.

Space between Words

I just went to a thesis recitation from some grad students in UNH's English department. It was entirely outside of my routine. The pieces included creative writing, poetry, journalism, and a novel. I attended specifically for the journalist, but the poet mentioned something in one of her tormented, grief-stricken poems about death: "the space between words."
I don't remember what, if anything, she had to say about it. Her pieces were stream-of-consciousnesses and hard to follow as a recitation. But it struck me that she for some reason or another found interest in the space between words.

As a musician, I've heard it said that "space" is one of the most important and under-appreciated parts of music- that the notes we don't play are just as crucial as the notes we do.
I've heard critical comparisons of "yesterday's music" to "modern pop music" where the major difference is the amount of "space": classic rock has room to breath, so to speak, and the instruments sit loosely with each other. Modern music is much more tightly packed, with studio limiters turned all the way up to give the illusion of loudness. And people of all types generally agree that the space that we used to put around notes is a good thing.

My senior capstone project uses little chips for sensing temperature and for software-controlled switches. The product line I chose is called "1wire" because the devices receive their power from the same wire that they send data on. (using only one wire between them: 1wire). The design challenge that this presents is that when a device is using the line to send data, everything else connected loses their power source. (the line is pulled high when idle, and when a device uses it, it gets pulled low.) This requires that each 1wire device has a little capacitor inside that stores enough energy to allow it to "hold its breath" when the line is in use and then recharge when the line is let go. If something keeps the line low for too long, all the devices in the chain will eventually use up their stored energy and reset themselves. Communication over a 1wire buss requires space between commands in order to work.

I think people must fundamentally be the same way.
When I have something important to say, I find myself talking slower, giving space around each word.
And I think about all the sermons or lectures I've sat through where the stream of words coming at me was so endless and deprived of space that I simply stopped listening.
Picture this:
You're stuck in a conversation with someone and you're distracted.
Maybe something is happening outside, like a sudden steam leak or a guy riding a unicycle, and it has stolen your attention from the person you were talking to. They continue to talk and you continue to nod and fake your engagement while secretly wishing that they would let you go investigate that sudden steam leak.
And then, they pause, mid-sentence.
Their words stop.

What do you do?

You realize that you've been caught. You turn your head and look them in the eye and maybe apologize for being distracted. Or maybe you pretend that nothing exciting is happening outside and that you really were present for the whole conversation.

Regardless, this is what occurred:
A space in between words caught your attention.

We become so used to words without spaces in between them that a pause is truly meaningful.
Perhaps, like 1wire, we need the pauses to catch our breath.
But people tend to avoid silence.
Silence is scary in a conversation. It means that someone is thinking instead of talking. It forces you to think, too. Maybe that's why we don't like the spaces between things. A space is somewhere that isn't, and that is just too meaningful for us to enjoy.

I would like to bring back space as a part of what I do.
If I play less notes, I will have to be more deliberate about the ones that I do play.
If I say less words, I will have to think about what I say before I say it.
If we let our conversations have pauses, we will be able to make better decisions.
If our lives have pauses between running around doing this or that, we will be able to enjoy the time that we actually have. We shouldn't need to take a vacation to hawaii in order to notice the ocean. We should have that space built-in to our lives.