Unmentionables and Newton's Law

I feel compelled to begin this post with a warning.  The following content may shock women into tears and cause men to collapse on the floor and rock back and forth in the fetal position.  

I offer my apologies to both genders. 

When I was in college I wanted to be a doctor.  Three years, and a “D” in physics later, I decided that no sane person would want me to cut them open and try to fix their insides.  Despite the aforementioned academic blemish, I did learn a few things about physics that have bearing on the past week, specifically Newton’s second law.  This law is stated in a formula “F=ma” which can be summed up as follows * :  The heavier something is (its mass or “m”), and the faster it’s accelerating (or “a”), the more force (or F) it will have when it hits something.  So let’s apply that to the events of the past week.  Take two children with a combined weight of 70lbs and multiply that times, roughly, the speed of light and you get a VERY large amount of force.  THAT is the force that has been applied, about four times, everyday this week, to my special “man” place.  It’s true.  Do the math.  This week I’ve taken it square in the unmentionables twenty-eight times.  Men…commence writhing. 

OK…breath and think happy thoughts.

From my extensive research (i.e. talking to another dad at the beach) I’ve discovered that this is a very common occurrence when you’re raising boys.  Especially when they’re little and don’t know the blinding pain they are causing.  Perhaps that’s why America’s Funniest Home Videos never seems to run out of that kind of clip.  Lest any of the women reading this think I’m exaggerating, allow me to offer this proof.

Pro hockey players have blades on their feet, sticks in their hands and the average hockey puck travels at 98 mph.  These same players shun the use of facemasks, exposing their eyes, teeth and overall appearance to countless abuses.  They wear a cup.

Pro baseball players have bats, cleats, and pitchers that hurl a hard ball, on average, as fast as 100 mph.  THEY wear no padding at all.  But they wear a cup. 

Most men will endure marring, battering, and injury to any other part of their body.  But “there”?  Protect it like Fort Knox.  I think I’ve made my point. 

My boys don’t do it maliciously.  It’s always an accident during activities in which they’re jumping on me...wrestling on the couch, catching them as they dive off the dock at the lake, etc…  Regardless, I consider it a miracle of God that I haven’t been walking like a cowboy all week. 

The funny thing is, that if anyone else did that to me, that many times, I would fly into a rage (imagine “rabid water buffalo” meets Braveheart meets Gladiator).  I mean I’d go medieval…in Christian love, of course.  But with my boys it seems natural to forgive them. 

(Playing and Laughing)

“Uurgggggggggg”

“Daddy, why did your eyes get really big and then roll back in your skull?”

“It’s OK, Buddy.”

I look at my children who are causing me pain and the first thing I want to do is extend grace because I know that they don’t know what they’re doing to me.  Of course I’m teaching them not to hit people there, but some things take time to sink in.

As I began writing this, I initially recoiled at the thought of comparing my accidental pain to the suffering of Jesus on the cross.  And so I won’t.  As much as men cringe at the slightest mention of a hit to the “nethers”, we should cringe at the cross even more.  That kind of suffering was so bad that people created a word to describe it.  Excruciating. That word literally means, “of the cross”.   No.  My “random connection to meaning” is not to that. 

It’s to God’s heart.  It’s to Jesus’ cry from the cross, “Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they’re doing.”  And they didn’t.  

And we don’t.  

And I don’t.  

I don’t think I truly understand the gravity of what I do when I sin.  If I did, I would like to imagine that I would simply stop.  And yet, I don’t.  I can’t.  And that’s what moves me as I write.  Because, as Jesus’ words asked for forgiveness for those who don’t know what they’re doing, his body was making a way for those of us who do know and can’t help ourselves.  I write, “can’t help ourselves”, not to remove responsibility, but in the literal sense.  We are incapable of helping ourselves.  And that’s why Jesus died.  And that is the grace of God.

 

 

 

 

 

*For any physicists out there…I know I’ve taken liberty with these formulas and their definitions.  I also know that V = sqrt(2F/M * D) is probably the formula I wanted but you’re the only people who will notice. I hide behind God’s grace, artistic license, and my “D” in second semester physics.  I beg your forgiveness.