Redi or Not?

Four hundred years ago EVERYONE knew where flies came from. Rotting meat, of course! Every time meat started rotting, it wasn't long before flies began to buzz around it. Then along came Francesco Redi claiming that flies came from maggots. HA! What did he know? Flies had been coming from rotting meat since even the oldest person alive could remember.

I don't know about you, but one of my least favorite things in all the world is to be the one to upset the applecart. I like the people around me to be pleased with me, but most of all to agree with what I'm thinking. Unfortunately the reality is that too often when we spend time thinking things through the conclusions we come to or the dreams we create go against the grain of those around us, and presenting a new idea or defying an age-old belief is the quickest route to rolled eyes and cold shoulders. Of course it's uncomfortable and awkward, but is it a bad thing?

Francesco Redi, doesn't have a long list of scientific accomplishments to his credit, but he was a true visionary. He saw past the known reality and understood something everyone else touted to be fanciful and impractical. But the difference between Redi and me (maybe you too?), is the fact that he didn't let go of the belief until he had proved it to be true.

Are you "Redi"

to make your visions reality?

Rember this......

Not everything is as it appears.

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"A dreamer can find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." Oscar Wilde

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Proof can't be refuted.

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"People only see what they are prepared to see." Ralph Waldo Emerson

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No one is remembered for being ordinary.

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"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." Jonathan Swift

I read an interview with Dan Brown, author of The Divinci Code, in the paper yesterday. Who do you think turned him into the religious skeptic the book seems to portray? ...a bad friend, aetheistic teachers, unbelieving parents? Wrong! It was his minister.

According to Dan Brown, at a very crucial time in his life he went to school and heard the Big Bang Theory. Being a very religious kid, he also went to church and heard that God created the heaven and earth. So what was the answer? He was struggling to fit all of the pieces of the puzzle of religion and science together in his own mind. When he asked the question, his minister's response was that nice boys don't ask that question. And guess what? The science teacher was only too happy to explain his theory in a way that made sense to his young mind.

The truth is that kids have questions. The questions are big. At some point every human has to come to grips with how to interpret the world around them. The even scarier truth is that it's not always the person with the right answers who takes the time to answer those tough questions. When we avoid them, they find the answers somewhere. It might be in a book, from a friend, off a movie, or even a teacher at school. But the fact is that we won't have the opportunity to help them understand and leave them vulnerable to very slanted or even perverted viewpoints.

We must never forget that our children will get an answer to their questions! It's just a matter of who or what is providing those answers.

When you've got a child who thinks outside the box, Christmas shopping can take on a different kind of challenge. You have to look for "safe" gifts.... the kind that can't be used for an unexpected scientific experiment or worse! lol

This year, I really thought I had managed to get my son a gift that would encourage his amazingly curious 10-year-old mind and keep all of us safe. I found a wonderful science kit that explored experiments with the weather. Cool :)

What I never dreamed was that the real scientific experiment of the season would have nothing to do with the weather. You see, I bought Andrew an IPod and knowing the ear buds would never stay in his ears, I also bought him a set of those kind that you stick over the outside of your ears. They worked wonderfully.

So what happened to the original set? It went something like this....

"Hey Mom, look. I've plugged my ear buds into my CD player so they could get some real volume. Now watch!"

Cringing for his eardrums, I was afraid to look. But that's not what he had in mind! This child who carries my DNA crammed the ear buds up his nostrils (these are about the diameter of marbles btw) and began flapping his mouth open and shut.

What appeared to me to be an imitation of a monkey having a seizures was my son attempting to channel sound up through his nasal passage, down his throat and out his mouth. The flapping mouth was his volume control!

Sigh.... What a kid!!!!

I'm just praying we all survive long enough to see him become the world's next Thomas Edison or Bill Gates.