It was a long drive, through steady snow fall, to meet a friend for lunch on the other side of town. With a filled stomach, I strolled back to the car after lunch. Lost in reflection, I walked with my feet constrained in a crisp tire track of displaced snow leading to my car. All at once, I was profoundly compelled this physical track in this physical world came from a mental decision to meet my friend and pick a specific parking place. As a transistor controls a much greater current, a small neuron in my brain had a profound influence recorded in the snow. Ideas have consequences in the physical world.
Recently, I was given the opportunity to watch a film about William Wilberforce and read excerpts of a biography on his life 1. This man had a profound effect on the world by thoughts in his mind driven by convictions and affections.
This written reflection of words and letters has a purely physical form, yet they symbolize ideas of a metaphysical nature. It is mind boggling I can simultaneously enter your mind and you can enter mine as I write and you read this sentence through physical media. Additionally, communication is really the only way mind entering is possible. There are other manifestations of communication such as art, music and equations. However, each contain a consistent physical pattern for idea transfer. A thought needs to be expressed into media such as contrast on a page for words or oscillating airwaves against eardrums. Then the expression needs to be demodulated. An idea requires time and energy to be put into a physical organized form. Once formed, it takes both time and energy of another mind to decode the expressed idea.
The requirement of time and energy, both physical, is revealing and challenging. Where we spend our time and energy is a display of our thoughts and accordingly what we think is really important. The physical world is a place for worship. God gives time and God gives energy. Leading back to life's end, may my thoughts and actions spill out with my time and energy to what is really important.
