When Life Seems Bendy
Excuse me, while I get a little nerdy here. I’m going to circle back to a real point, I promise.
Trying to prove Euclid’s 5th postulate (Euclid, the father of Geometry) had been a lifetime work of Hungarian mathematician, Farkas Bolyai. The postulate (to oversimplify it) says two lines that are not parallel will cross. When his son decided to work on the same, Farkas said, “I have traversed this bottomless night which extinguished all light and joy in my life. It can deprive you of leisure, your health, your peace of mind, and your entire happiness.” I don’t know about you, but at times that’s how my parenting felt.
Rather than try to prove the postulate, his son, János Bolyai, decided to disprove it. Spoiler alert: János created a whole new branch of mathematics because of his work. He had been strenuously discouraged from messing with the 5th postulate but persisted and invented something new and brilliant!
In the same way, when we force the world (or our loved ones) to fit into our perspective, we miss the unusual and interesting. God created us uniquely with many ways of thinking. Although I don’t understand what is going on in my child’s mind, I can listen, empathize, and validate them. Perhaps they’ll invent something new that approaches the world from a different viewpoint.
Here’s my cynical interpretation of young Bolyai’s new non-Euclidean geometry. It gets a little bendy, so if you’re a mathematician, feel free to roll your eyes at me.
If you choose a point close enough to the parallel line and extend a line through it, and you can’t see where it meets the other line, call it parallel. Then János decided that the lines get closer but they “bend away.” Right there, I went off the rails. Hello! Straight lines don’t bend. But in this non-Euclidean geometry, there are “defects”. Yeah, no kidding. János said he created a strange new world. Which in fact he did. But it was genius!
What looks like a defect to me might be seen differently if I were to walk around to a different perspective. Even though things look bad from where I am standing, I dare not judge. I cannot fully understand what my child is going through.
Now that I have criticized an entire branch of mathematics, let’s see where it led. Non-Euclidean geometry paved the way for relativity and curved space-time. Our much-used GPS requires the bendy lines. The internet used these concepts for webpage ranking. It opened up perspective geometry and elliptical geometry. End of nerdiness!
Many tools of our modern world rely upon that which was created from looking at things differently. We see some of the alphabet soup diagnoses as “disorders”. Being gifted in some states qualifies you for the handicapped act. How wrong we are when instead of cherishing differences, we judge. Matt 7:1 says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
You’ve got to feel sorry for Farkas Bolyai, who spent his whole life trying to prove something and failed. You know, “bottomless night extinguishing all joy” and stuff. And you’ve got to hand it to Euclid who realized he couldn’t prove it and just made it a postulate. But János shifted his perspective and won the math lottery. Let us now shift our perspective and win the prodigal lottery.
My grumbling, lack of acceptance, and non-dialectical thinking could close off the brilliance of new ideas. Should we accept our child’s flagrant violations, drugs, bitterness, or criminal behavior? Yeah, probably not that part. But can we slow down, rest gently into the melee, and try to empathize with the feelings that are causing the distress? Sally forth into the battlefield armed with a gentle kindness. Their path, clearly not what I would have chosen or wanted, may take them someplace bright and beautiful. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (NIV)
The person who is desperately trying to cope with emotions and an inability to sleep, lying awake feeling unlovable – well, their reality is different from mine. Maybe they have bendy lines. Certainly, a teenager with a mood disorder has a few bendy lines. A young person being bullied may have unvoiced fear. Maybe I need to tilt my noggin a bit and look squinty-eyed at things to appreciate their viewpoint. Waiting in love with prayer, patience, and acceptance, perhaps I will one day see great things.
The world isn’t always as nicely delineated as the mathematicians of Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and the classical Greeks imagined. Certainly, straight lines are complicated for a deeply wounded person whose choices are limited. Looking back in time, I will give my memories some grace. Wishing things were different will never be as effective as practicing acceptance with humility. Love and let live.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I do not know how my precious child feels or what has driven them to these choices. Please heal their brokenness and draw them close to you. Help me to practice acceptance. Grant me love, forgiveness, faith, and humility as I interact with them. We are both hurting. Please hold us in your arms. Grant us comfort. Fill us with every fruit of your Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Amen.
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