I spent a big chunk of today at the phone store. Not, just between us, my idea of fun but nothing has blown up yet so we’re claiming a win on that.
I spent much of the week thinking about math.
This, if you’d known me for 40 or 50 years, would be something of a surprise.
We moved around a lot when I was a kid and it seemed like every state we lived in had a different “new math” system. I was pretty confused.
The guidance counselors told my mom that, by the time I got to middle school, it would start to make more sense.
Not so much.
My math teacher in 7th grade was a nice guy who had long yellow finger nails, reeked of smoke, and responded, “Figure it out,” to just about every question.
In 8th grade, I took algebra I, ahead of schedule.
In 9th grade, I took it again. My teacher was the freshman football coach and the sponsor of the chess team. You guessed it! We drew football plays on the chalk board and played chess.
My 10th grade geometry teacher was a retired military pilot. We told war stories and made paper airplanes. I survived by drawing very neat proofs.
In 11th grade, something bizarre happened. My teacher wanted to do math! Sadly, she responded to every question with chapter and verse version from the Algebra one text, seemingly not realizing that I’d spent that year on football plays and chess.
By some major miracle, I survived enough Calculus and Statistics to wind up with a whole lot of alphabet soup after my name.
And, mostly, math in my day-to-day world has meant recipes and fabric yardage for quilts and the proper ratios for raw dog food.
All that changed this week!
Frankly, I’m not entirely sure whether what I was learning was math or science, wonders of the world or philosophy.
It did have numbers.
This week I learned the Fibonacci sequence!
And, suddenly, I’m a fan of math.
The cosmic pattern for nautilus shells and star galaxies and sunflowers and fiddlehead ferns and a whole lot of ancient buildings that are still standing, the photo above is my first attempt at a Fibonacci spiral.
I am, surprisingly, moved by this ancient wonder.
I am moved by the sensation of making the swirls over and over.
I am thrilled by my painting, rudimentary though it may be.
And covered over as it already is.
Some things just wonder me.
Here’s the best part…
The Fibonacci sequence has to do with building things on a secure base, be they buildings, or family relationships, or social structures.
We North Americans didn’t do so well with that when we built a world that essentially ignored the important base of the indigenous peoples who lived here already.
I’d even go so far as to say that we’re not doing such a good job of building on a solid base in these days.
I’m clinging, though, to the possibility that there’s still time to learn. To start again with the ancient truths of harmony and relationship.
So be it. Amen.