Tag: Balance

Extreme Balance – Grace

This post will make more sense if you read some of the earlier extreme balance posts

We called our first daughter Hannah Grace (Hannah means grace in Hebrew), so she was Grace Grace Rubie (now Morrison). Suffice to say, I have always been in awe of Grace.

Grace is one of those words that describes something so profound and multifaceted it is hard to define. I have heard many definitions over the years, some good, some not so good.

 I thought I would make up my own definition (why not) – It is not a comprehensive definition, but I think it captures one facet of Grace:

– Unexpected Beauty –

Most of us can remember Susan Boyle stepping onto the stage during her audition for Britain’s Got Talent. She was an embarrassingly awkward, ordinary looking lady. Everyone’s expectation was a cringe-worthy performance – we sensed her vulnerability and it made us anxious.

And then she opened her mouth “I dreamed a dream in days gone by….” And we were all touched by grace – something unexpectedly beautiful.

On ANZAC day when Ataturk’s letter to the mothers of soldiers who died on the battlefields of Gallipoli, is read “… You the mothers who sent your sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.” This expression of love, by a former enemy, is unexpectedly beautiful and touches us with grace.

I have included grace as one of the posts about extreme balance because it is often grace that we see when opposing truths are lived in the extreme.

When the King of Kings kneels and serves, it is unexpectedly beautiful – grace

When Justice is met with mercy, we see grace

When faith met works and Jesus wept, we saw grace

When life leaps forth from death we see grace

When we look at the faces of Daniel Morcombe’s parents who have dedicated their lives to saving children having tragically lost their own son to a predator – we do not see bitterness, we see grace.

The human heart is in tune with grace.

We are exalted by it.

Grace has a memory that lasts long after the event.

The most unexpectedly beautiful object in the world is the Cross.

The most horrific means of torture and death devised by man has caused more hearts to exalt and sing than any other object.

It is where truth and justice met mercy and forgiveness

It is where God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…

It is ‘Amazing Grace’ where those once lost are now found and those blind now see

The hymn When I Survey the Wonderous Cross proclaims ‘… did ere such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown’

this act of grace changed the world

and changed my world

I hope you have surrendered to its unexpected beauty

Why not show grace today and do something unexpectedly beautiful!

Extreme Balance

We often come across people who seem unbalanced

…they are sometimes too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use or

…too earthly minded to be of any heavenly use

Anyone who has watched the movie, or seen actual footage, of Philippe Petit walking on a tight rope between the twin towers in New York, has seen extreme balance

On August 7th, 1974 at 6:00 am in the morning, using a 25-foot long balancing pole, Petit stepped off the south tower onto a wire 110 stories above the streets of New York City. With “extreme fear, and great joy and pride,” he crossed to the north tower and sat down on the corner of the building. Dream accomplished. Then the south tower beckoned to him. In a 45-minute period, while a huge crowd gathered below, Petit made eight crossings on the 134-foot long wire. He sat, lay down, and danced on the wire before exiting into the arms of policemen – I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief when he did.

This walk demonstrated extreme courage, extreme balance and the benefit of mass moment of inertia

This Blog is more about balance and mass moment of inertia than courage – however you will need courage to be balanced

Mass moment of inertia is a measure of an object’s (Petit’s and the pole’s) resistance to rotating (falling off the wire)

In equation form, the poles mass moment of inertia is:

Pole mass moment of inertia = 1/12 x pole mass x (pole length)2

If you have a balancing pole, you will be more stable the greater its mass and the greater its length but increasing the length of the pole (pole length2) has the biggest effect.

If you have ever tried to balance yourself on a beam you will have instinctively thrown out your arms to increase your mass moment of inertia

A few clues from Petit about extreme balance

Hold the pole in the middle

(This is obvious – but you need to make sure you have equal weight and length on each side)

Make the pole as long as you can handle

(this maximises your mass moment of inertia and hence stability)

I propose that balance in life doesn’t come from constraining the truth and trying to reign everything in to the bland middle

it comes from understanding and equally applying truths, that seem poles apart and in opposition to each other, to the extreme – the longer the pole the better – as long as you are holding it in the middle.

I think this is the key to an ‘abundant life’

Here is a list of some seemingly opposing truths:

Faith and Works

Justice and Mercy

Law and Grace

Life and Death

Servant Leadership

Predestination and Free Will

Christ’s divinity and His humanity

If you embrace each opposing element to the extreme, not diminishing one at the expense of the other, you will lead an extremely balanced (abundant) life

‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’

The next few Blogs will look at what extreme balance looks like in practice