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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

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my thoughts: on the Mandelbrot Set

Pretty recently, I made a comment about a possibility pertaining to the universe in a group for members of my church. The only person to respond to me directly was exceedingly unkind and taunted my comments. Basically, he acted like a bully and made fun of my thoughts. The most surprising thing about him, to me, is that he did this unabashedly AND he's old enough to be my Dad. Seriously.

I responded that he was acting in a manner that was beneath him. He responded that his reaction was completely appropriate because of the ridiculousness of what he understood in my comments.

The thing is, I didn't deserve to be taunted, laughed at, and made fun of. That was all about him and how intolerant and unkind he is. In the moment of reading his unkindnesses, though, I didn't feel the truth of what I know! How true it is, this thing I've taught my children: the devil loves to manipulate our feelings and drag us down to misery by them!

So, anyway… as a result of that most disagreeable interaction with a stranger who should've known better, I feel the desire to share about the Mandelbrot Set here.

This most amazing mathematical set is not just a fractal. It is one of many ways of understanding the world around us.

This set is believed to represent the skin where order and chaos meet. If we consider this for a moment in human terms, what would that “skin” be? The mind, heart, and spirit of human beings, of course. Our minds, hearts, and spirits are the place where chaos (the devil) and order (God) meet. We are where they win or lose.

In a regular fractal, we see the fruition of sacred geometry, as it is considered. And it is beautiful, as is the Mandelbrot Set. However, in the MS one can move into it (zoom in, as it were) and the picture changes. While this is also true of other fractals, I'm not sure the end of the zooming is also. You see, in the Mandelbrot Set, when you zoom in far enough, so long as nothing has changed in the original, you'll eventually return to the exact same image as where you began.

Which lends a relatively good segue to the next point: The Mandelbrot Set is a picture of a pretty organic looking amoeba or paisley-type thing. On the outer edge of it are various size repetitions of the same shape. On the same outside line of each paisley on the outside of the main paisley are more of them… and on to infinity, it is supposed. If one changes one small (even the smallest thing we could change) on any of those paisley shapes, the whole picture changes.

This mathematical picture is awesome to me because it is a representation of us! First, as I already shared, I believe it shows our mind/heart/spirit as the place where chaos and order meet. Second, we see that no matter our path and life's experiences, we will continue to come round to the same exactly thing… unless the third thing happens… a change. If we change one small thing in ourselves, our perception of the whole world changes. If we change (as one small part of the world), the whole world also changes in actuality.

Ghandi taught it by saying, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Jesus Christ taught it in many ways, with particular focus on forgiving others.
Awesome, right?

Can you see what I see? If you want to know that I'm not the only one who sees it this way, please watch.

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