Algebra Concepts - 2/17/16

My An Arkie's Faith column from the February 17, 2016 issue of The Mena Star.

I spent my first two years of high school at a small private school in Boulder, Colorado. I still remember the teachers there and the impact they made on my life. There was Principal Stafford who drove a Volkswagen Bus. Ms. Shirley Nightingale was fresh out of college and we boys enjoyed embarrassing her. I think we were just a bit disappointed when she became Mrs. Cole. Mrs. Carlisle was the band director and taught me to play the trumpet. She is still teaching music at the same school.

My most unforgettable teacher was Elder Siebenlist. He was older and had spent his life as an educator. He had been the principal of several high schools both public and private. He was the principal of the Solusi Training School in what is now Zimbabwe, Africa from 1946- 1954. In 1994 the Solusi school became a university, the first private university in Zimbabwe. I loved hearing Elder Siebenlist tell stories about his time in Africa. When he told stories about encounters with lions and traveling in Africa I was spellbound. I had grown up reading books and stories about missionaries and now I had a teacher who was a real life missionary.

When I started high school my hardest class was algebra. My grade school math classes had not given me even the basics of algebra. I was confused and did very poorly for the first quarter. But then all of a sudden it seemed to make sense. There were rules and if you followed the rules you could get the right answer even if you didn’t understand why. One of the first rules of algebra that I learned was the rule of symmetry: If a = b, then b = a.

I was reminded of this rule recently while listening to a sermon by my pastor. He asked us to do an exercise that made an impact on me. It is a short easy exercise. I would like to share it with you.

The Bible calls John, “the disciple that Jesus loved”. Jesus had a best friend.  The best friend of Jesus wrote in 1 John 4:7,8 (NCV) “Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God’s child and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”. From this statement we can safely deduce that the following equation is true: God = Love.

Remember that in algebra we have the rule of symmetry: If a = b, then b = a. So if God = Love, then Love = God.

In the exercise my pastor had us turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and read verses 4-7 (NLT).   "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

Now since Love = God, we were to replace love in the passage with God.  It read like this. God is patient and kind. God is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. He does not demand His own way. He is not irritable, and He keeps no record of being wronged. God does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. God never gives up; He never loses faith, He is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

What a beautiful picture of God. We can say that God is love, but what does that mean? Through this use of an algebraic axiom we can get a clearer understanding of God. We can see that many of the ways that men have portrayed God simply don’t measure up to the picture of God shown by this simple exercise.

Gentle Reader, I hope that your life will be blessed by this concept of God. Maybe you haven't looked at God this way before. Remember that God is patient and kind. God is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. He does not demand His own way. He is not irritable, and He keeps no record of being wronged. God does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. God never gives up; He never loses faith, He is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Colorado Floods

Growing up, I attended school in Longmont, Colorado.  Over the last couple of days Longmont has experienced what is being called a 500 year flood. The rising water forced neighborhoods to evacuate and major streets to close.   City officials have evacuated a dozen neighborhoods totaling 7,000 homes.

It is so sad to hear of all the devastation in the area, not only in Longmont but also in Loveland, Estes Park, Boulder, and many smaller towns such as Niwot, Lyons and Jamestown.  Having grown up in this area it has brought back many memories of my childhood.

I attended school at the Longmont, SDA Elementary School from first though eighth grade. The school was a two room school with the first through fourth grades in one room and the fifth through eighth grades in another. Here is a photo of the upper grades taken during my sixth grade year. I am in the farthest corner just barely visible.


Here is my school photo from that year. It must have been taken at the beginning of the school year as I am still sporting my "summer" haircut.


We never lived in Longmont, but did our shopping there. One of the things that I remember about Longmont was the Great Western Sugar Factory. On our drive from Frederick, and later after we moved, Erie, I could always tell we were getting close to Longmont when I could see the gleaming white silos of the Sugar Factory. The factory was the first thing you would see if you were coming into Longmont from the east.



The Sugar Beet industry was a major force all along the front range of Colorado from the turn of the century up until the late 70's and early 80's. Why did beet sugar in Colorado mostly fade away? The common reasons I've read are competition from cheaper cane sugar abroad, and other sweeteners such as corn syrup. My first job out of high school was working for Dalton Truck Sales near Longmont. They specialized in taking old 2 ton trucks and refurbishing them fitting them with special made Sugar Beet Boxes to haul sugar beets to the factories. These trucks were only used for the harvest season, but were needed to haul the beets. I have painted many sugar beet trucks similar to the one in this photo.


My favorite place in Longmont was the Public Library. During the time I was in school I read just about every book in the kids section of the library. I still remember being disappointed that I was only allowed to check out three books at a time. I also didn't understand why I couldn't check out books from the adult section on my kids library card. I would take my three books home and have them read in a day or two and then begged my Mama to take me back to the library. I kept a flashlight handy for reading after I was supposed to be asleep. The Longmont Public Library was my access to knowledge.



As I got older I loved shopping at the Woolworths Store. There is just something about a Woolworths. One of my favorite singers, Nanci Griffith, wrote a song about Woolworths titled "Love at the Five and Dime". She tells the story of growing up in Austin, Texas and changing buses in front of the Woolworths store. she said that she had just enough time get a vanilla Coke, dig through the record bin, wink at the boys and get back on the bus. My favorite thing to do at Woolworths was digging through the discount record bin. As a kid Woolworths was the only place where I had access to music. I have a large and eclectic music collection and I can say that it all started at Woolworths.




There are so many memories that I have of those years of going to school in Longmont. The Dairy Queen and A&W Root Beer Stand were favorite places for a special treat. We shopped at Ranch Wholesale Supply and The Corner Pantry. Our bank was First National Bank, and they always gave a little box of gum with two Chiclets inside to each of the kids in the car.


Longmont will always hold fond memories of my childhood. The last time I was able to go back and look around was in 2009. The town is no longer the sleepy little town that it was when I was going to school there. It has grown exponentially. While we were there I went by the old school grounds. The building that I went to school in is still there, and really hasn't changes much except there is now a gymnasium attached at the back of the building. I would hate that, because I remember spending a lot of time looking out the full wall of windows that lined the back of the school and daydreaming.



I will be going back to Colorado in a couple of weeks for my wife and I's 40th High School Reunion. It has been four years since we have been back for a visit.  The last time we were in Colorado, we stopped by Campion Academy where Gina and I went to High School. The campus looked pretty much the same. Our visit brought back lots of memories. I remembered the beautiful blonde that walked the halls and didn't know that I even existed. We both worked at Harris Pine Mills. I would go back to the area where she worked during break time. She thought that I liked her friend. I was so painfully shy that I never had a date during High School. I finally got up the nerve to ask her to to march with me during graduation. We started dating during the summer. This is a picture of the girl that captured my heart.



Here we are once again walking the halls of Campion Academy. We found our class picture on the wall and took our picture by it.



From Campion we drove into Loveland and walked the downtown streets. After we were married we lived in Loveland for six years. The downtown area still looked about the same, but the old buildings have been well maintained and the shopping is now antique stores and art gallerys. Sculptures now line the streets. From Loveland we drove up the Big Thompson Canyon to Estes Park, the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. On July 31, 1976, while we were living in Loveland, a violent rainstorm sent a rampaging wall of water through Big Thompson Canyon. The massive flood killed 144 people. Gina and I along with my family had been picnicking along the banks of the Big Thompson River that afternoon. When it started to rain we packed up and drove home through heavy rain. We didn't know there had been a flood until the next morning. The drive up the canyon brought all those memories flooding back.



One of the areas that is flooding this year is the Big Thompson Canyon.  Once again the area has been devastated.  Here is a photo from yesterday.

My prayers are with all those affected by these floods.