A Widget Problem

Posted on February 28th, 2008 by Marisol Velez

Sometimes our ways are too limited. We try our hardest to make something work the way we think it outta work and we get stuck in that one-way mind set of how things should work.

To illustrate my point, here’s a short story about my dilemma with two web widgets (an RSS Reader and a Google Ad which you now see below –cool little things aren’t they?) that I was trying to place on two of my blog pages. Although I successfully placed the widgets on the pages, there were display problems. So I tweaked with the styling code to see if I could get the widgets to display the way I wanted them too. In short, nothing worked and I got very frustrated. I had tried all sorts of style methods to fix the problem, but to no avail. If something managed to work right, something else would go wrong, and on it went like this until I got so frustrated that I stopped what I was doing and just sat there in front of the computer feeling peeved.

I had prayed earlier for direction, but I was too peeved during that time to listen to what the Spirit was trying to tell me. I was stuck trying to do things my way and it wasn’t until I decided to stop what I was doing and calm down that I was then able to receive direction. The problem is not the code. Try a different page. Huh?

That’s right. It wasn’t the code. What I wanted to accomplish wasn’t going to work on those two pages. It was going to work on a different page. A solution I hadn’t even considered. So I found the appropriate file, plopped in the code, tweaked with the styling, and whala! Those to widgets now show up dynamically in all of my blog pages, which was something I had originally wanted, but didn’t think it was possible, because I didn’t know enough about the way the files were coded.

Hence the lesson: Heavenly Father’s ways are not our ways, because his ways are perfect, and our ways are not.

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Filed under: Patterns in Technology

The Ability of a Cactus

Posted on February 21st, 2008 by Marisol Velez

cactus.jpg

The Cactus is a fascinating plant. It survives in environments where water is scarce and temperatures are blistering hot. It lives with so little, yet still manages to do well. A cactus has the ability to absorb moisture through its stem as well as through its roots, and in this manner, secure a reservoir of water that sustains the plant.

Perhaps we can learn something from observing a cactus. Think of the Gospel as being that reservoir of water and having the ability to absorb the good from any situation. No matter where we are in life and what our circumstances may be, if we continue strong in the Gospel, we will always have that reservoir of life-giving water that is so crucial to our survival and we would never thirst.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus

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Filed under: Patterns in Nature

Proving the Unseen

Posted on February 13th, 2008 by Marisol Velez

Radio Telescope
Photo by Ian Britton

Just because you can’t see or feel it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Take radio waves, for instance. Although we can’t see or feel radio waves, we undoubtedly know they exist. In fact, we even invented a device called the radio that can receive and transmit radio waves.

Physicists will agree that nature is bound by certain physical laws, often referred to as the Laws of Physics. Technology is our way of using or accessing, for example, the unseen world of physical phenomenon such as radio waves.

Science textbooks teach us that radio waves are all around us. The Gospel teaches us something very similar. Just like radio waves, the influence of the Holy Ghost is all around us, and just like the radio technology, our spiritual bodies are designed to access the influence of the Holy Ghost.

But now, just as there are the “Laws of Physics” that must be understood and followed in order to successfully utilize or access physical phenomenon, there are the “Laws of the Gospel” that we must understand and follow in order to successfully utilize and access the spirit.

Just as there are laws that govern the temporal (or physical world), there are laws that govern the spiritual. And both must be understood.

There are very few people (or hardly anyone that I know of) who would argue that radio waves do not exist. In fact, experiments have been done to prove that they do exist.

Question: What experiments can you do to test if the spirit exists?
Answer: Follow the Laws of the Gospel. Pretty plain and simple, huh?

Experimenting is taking a leap of faith (Alma 32:27). Someone had to first believe that radio waves existed, and then later put it to the test.

Alma 32:27
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

Sources:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/radio.htm
http://www.britannica.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com

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Filed under: Exploring Phenomenons, Patterns in Technology

A Self-destructing Palm?

Posted on February 6th, 2008 by Marisol Velez

In January, an article appeared on the CNN web site about the discovery of a self-destructing palm tree that flowers every 100 years. The palm in its flowering stage was discovered on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar by a man who runs a plantation.

Read article: Self-destructing palm tree discovered in Madagascar.

Update: the CNN article expired 2-15-2008. However, details of the find were published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. For press release and photos, go here: New Genus of Self-Destructive Palm found in Madagascar. If the press release article also expires, please google search under Tahina spectabilis, which is the name given to the palm.

Although not the only self-destructing palm of its kind (mention was made of the Chuniophoeniceae palms found only in Asia), it is fascinating how Heavenly Father designed the physiological process of this particular type of palm. It flowers and fruits only once every 100 years, but the process of flowering and fruiting is exhausting to the palm, that it cannot continue to sustain itself and eventually collapses. Does this sound familiar?

So many people go through life doing good deeds and being generous, but they leave out the spiritual nourishment needed to sustain them, or that is, give them a reason to continue their charitable acts. People are only willing to do so much good before they become, at some point, discouraged and decide the world is just too cruel and taxing to care anymore.

But the gospel provides us with an eternal perspective that gives us the drive and the desire to continue these acts of love. Without this all-important spiritual nourishment, we would be much like the self-destructing palm, that at some point, after giving all that we have, we decide to give up, or simply collapse.

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Filed under: Patterns in Nature

The Fifth Leg

Posted on January 29th, 2008 by Marisol Velez

One Monday evening, as I was laying down sideways on my couch (I was about ready to take a snooze), I noticed, from my angle of view, that my computer chair appeared to have only four legs. However, I know in fact that it has five legs that are spread out in the shape of a star, which is designed to keep the chair balanced. Yet from my angle, here was this chair, successfully balancing on what appeared to be four unsymmetrically placed legs. Logically, it would have tipped over. But it didn’t and it won’t. It is sturdy and well-balanced. I just simply couldn’t see the fifth leg.

In life, we go through moments like these in which we cannot see the whole picture. We try to use our logic and our limited knowledge to understand things we see from a narrow angle. But Heavenly Father sees things from all angles. He knows of the fifth leg. He has the knowledge of its existence and its purpose. Though I cannot see the fifth leg. He can and he sees the bigger picture.

Our view               God’s view

chair-angle1.jpg chair-angle2.jpg


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Filed under: Curious Workmanships

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