Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere

For those of you who haven't heard, we recently bought a van. It's a 2005 Nissan Quest and we love it. I call it the Radmobile. Danielle calls it the van. You can all vote on whose name is better, but before I forget:

Warning! Husband Post! This is a warning! You've been warned.

We decided to become van people. No, we weren't dreading it. No, it didn't make us feel old. No, we weren't "giving in." No to all the other stereotypes people use to bash vans before admitting they're awesome. Our van is just awesome. Parenthood is awesome, so vans are awesome, simple as that.

We wanted to pay cash, so that put us in the market for a used van. As we shopped around online we noticed a trend among Utah van owners: They all drive their vans to death, and they all think they're worth $5000 MORE than little Miss Kelly Blue Book does. Even at 250k miles people were wanting over $10,000 for their 15-year-old van. It got ridiculous, so we got creative.

Danielle's dad works in Oregon kinda-sorta-but-not-really near Portland, so we started looking at listings from up there and found MUCH better deals. We picked a winner, Danielle's dad test-drove it, we wired the cash, and we became van people. The only issue left was how to actually GET the van...

The plan was that we were going to give "Gwampa" Dorius our Alero to replace a car that was giving him some grief and he would hand us the keys to our "new" van. So we settled on a date and a meeting place: Vale, Oregon. I looked it up on Google Maps and I could actually HEAR the tumbleweeds clogging their Main Street, but it was almost exactly halfway between him and me in driving time so we decided to meet at Vale's premier dining spot, the Starlite Cafe.

The trip there was uneventful, if a little rainy. The biggest incident I had was turning the wrong way down a one-way street and being greeted by the upthrown arms of a grumpy ambulance driver, but that happened IN Vale, so I figured the consequences wouldn't be too drastic seeing as I was about to switch cars and skip town forever. We met up at the cafe and I bought us each a slice of pie (the pie was fantastic, by the way, and if you ever drive through Vale, OR you should definitely stop in and grab a slice).

We finished up, switched our stuff over to our new cars, said goodbye, and went our separate ways. I drove back the way I had come, seeing the fronts of all the signs I had only known the backs of on the way up. I stopped to grab some dinner a couple of hours down the road at a Wendy's, then I was back at it.

Here's where I think some visuals will help the story. (FINALLY, I know, sorry).

You see, the instrument panel isn't in the usual place. It's all over in the middle so the wife can tell me to slow down without having to be too obvious about peeking at the speedometer. And you see those lights on the right? Those are all the "buckle seatbelt," "service engine," "eject passengers" indicator lights that don't seem important until they're lit up.

After Wendy's I get another hour or so down the road when I hear some sort of "ding, ding, ding" sound coming from the van. What are you telling me, van? What's wrong? My kids don't scream to tell me they're ok, and cars don't ding to tell me they're working fine.

As I'm doing 80 down the highway I lean over to try to see what's happening when I notice it.

Ayup. The gas light is on and I haven't seen a gas station in... Shoot. It just hit me that the Wendy's where I ate my dinner a little over an hour ago? It was AT A GAS STATION.

Dang.

"Ok, Google, Where's the nearest gas station?" My map pulls up with a couple of gas stations about an hour behind me (presumably one with a Wendy's built into the side of it) and a Flying J about an hour ahead of me. My gas gauge is down to what my wife calls "one little gas guy," just like this:

But with about a half a tank less.

Double dang.

I set my cruise control and I start fiddling with the console trying to see if the van will give me an estimate on how many miles I have left. I find a "DTE" setting and figure that to be "Distance To Empty." I click on it and my console reads "DTE: 18 Miles."

ALL THE DANGS.

Ok. Ok! Ok ok ok ok ok.... So, if I flip around I'll waste gas by slowing down, then accelerating back up to freeway speeds going the other direction. If I keep going I'll at least get 18 miles closer to home before my car sputters and dies. I decide to push on and hope for the best.

As my soon-to-be useless vehicle barrels down the empty highways I'm gripping the wheel with white knuckles and trying to convince the engine to keep on running. "Come on, just get me to a gas station. ANY gas station. I promise you'll get the best oil, premium gasoline, a full detailing, all the best of everything as long as you DON'T DIE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE."

DTE 17 Miles.  I see a rest stop, but for some reason they don't sell gas at rest stops. HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? I think maybe there's a jeep with a gas can or someone who can do something for me, but if not then I'll have wasted a stop and, again, have to accelerate up to highway speeds just to try the road again. I also realize that the people on my side of the highway are probably just as clueless as I am about when the next gas station will be coming up, so that's no help. I decide to risk it and push on.

DTE 16 Miles. It's here that I realize that the rest stop would have been a great place to just stop and wait for the roadside assistance guy to bring me gas. And now I've passed the last exit for who knows how many miles... More dang. My knuckles are getting sore, the sun is almost down, and I'm starting to wonder if the roadside assistance will find me before the hillbilly cannibal clan that absolutely MUST live behind one of these hills.

DTE 15 Miles. All I'm seeing are sheep and the road. No houses. No gas stations. No signs of hope. My knuckles are sore and I consider calling roadside assistance and guessing at where I'll break down just to get them on the road a little sooner.

Suddenly I see a sign that I can barely make out in the failing light: "Something something something Fuel Stop. Something 15 Miles something. Something something!"

DTE 14 Miles. Ok, so this DTE thing must be wrong because I am NOT going to break down in the middle of nowhere and be dinner for the Clampett's less fortunate non-oil-finding cousins from Idaho. I'm going to make it even if I have to pop it in neutral and COAST for the last mile.

DTE 10 Miles. I start realizing that sign was pretty worn down. Abandoned, even. Ma and Pa probably closed up shop in 1983 and all I'm gonna find is a blown-out husk of a building. Maybe some raccoons.

DTE 8 Miles. My cell phone has no reception. Probably because raccoons don't have cell phones and hillbilly cannibals would just make them into soup.

DTE * Miles. WHAT? You what? DTE WHAT? Now my car isn't even telling me how much more highway I get to see before I'm inevitably turned into bobcat food. It won't even take a guess, and has written me off as a lost cause. Like the One Ring seeking Sauron, this van is just using me to get to it's next owner.

DTE * Miles. I see an exit. There's nothing there on either side. Maybe there's a gas station a few miles off the highway, but I decide my corpse will be found sooner if it's by the road.

DTE * Miles. I start to REALLY regret leaving my gun at home.

DTE * Miles. Hey look! More cows!

DTE * Miles. I see another exit. This one with a blue sign under it. Probably one of those "No Services" signs. I almost drive by when I see a VERY faded gas symbol.

Yes, that's a screenshot from Google Maps of the exact sign I saw. But picture it at dusk after nearly ten hours on the road and apparently ten years after this photo was taken because the sign was NOT that easy to see.

I don't see any other signs or anything indicating there's actually a gas station there, but I figure I'll chance it. To badly paraphrase Matt Damon on Interstellar, "These are the best chances to find a gas station I've had in a while."

I pull off the exit and go left over the highway. Finally I see a gas station canopy and an old building next to it. I think "I'M SAVED" until I notice a donkey wandering through who seems to run the place. Now, I might just be a city slicker, but most functioning gas stations I've been to don't have vagrant livestock infestations. My heart sinks and I prepare to turn back around, but at the last minute I see the donkey is behind a fence. And he has friends! No, not gas station attendants. More animals! In all I count two donkeys, a sheep, and a couple of llamas. Or alpacas. I never learned the difference. Don't bother telling me, because I don't care.

Anyway, the point is it's (sort of) a petting zoo! I get closer and I notice the gas pumps look new! And functional! I pull up, joyously hop out of the Radmobile (yes, it did its job so it gets its pet name back), and feed the machine my card. Within a minute I'm filling my thirsty van with gas and pumping my fist, screaming "I DID IT!" for some reason.

Once the tank is full I start to actually look around.

Here's the petting zoo.

I named this one Rupert after Rupert Grint who likes to drive around giving free ice cream to children like a boss.

Here's the sign to the store, which has posted hours of "Sunup till Sundown." It was close enough to sundown that they were closed so I didn't get to give awkwardly enthusiastic hugs to anyone inside.

And the sign matches the receipt, which I thought was pretty cool.

After I got my adrenaline and endorphins under control I hopped back in the van and finished my drive home. I told Danielle this whole story over Voxer knowing she would (rightly) point out how dumb I was to not fill up at the gas pump 20 feet from where I sat to eat my Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. I proactively pointed out that now I had a story to blog about.

That seemed to make her happy.

Eternity and The Flatlanders

Husband Post. Be warned. Seriously, though. This one's... out there.

I've had an idea kicking around in my head for a few years that I've never put into writing or really been able to discuss at length with anyone. Since your perusal of this blog is voluntary, I can ramble without the usual guilt I associate with cornering some poor soul and unleashing a barrage of my random thoughts at them. So here goes:

There's a book called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. If you haven't read it, read it. It's fantastic and it's free (public domain). Here's a link to a free download. If that's too much for you, the Wikipedia article hits the high points. I'll give you an even shorter version:

A Square narrates his daily life living in the 2nd dimension (Flatland). He is then visited by a 3rd dimensional Sphere who proceeds to blow his freaking mind.

If you'd rather get the quick version of what I'll be talking about (as well as a similar mind-blowing experience) watch the following two videos, entitled "Imagining the 10th Dimension" parts 1 & 2:

Or watch the movie Interstellar a few times back to back.

Anyone still reading? Just the two of you? Ok, then let us begin:

In a two-dimensional space, all you see are lines. Imagine a penny on a table, then lower yourself to be looking at only the edge of the penny. That penny's edge, reduced to infinite thinness because there is no thickness in the 2nd dimension, is the essence of being a Flatlander. You see the edges of things and that's it. If you're looking at a Square, it's a line. A circle's a line. A triangle's a line. You get the idea. Without "feeling" the edges, you have no idea how many sides a shape has because they're all lines. If there's a triangle behind a pentagon, you see the pentagon and not the triangle because they're lines.

Looking from the third dimension you can easily distinguish a circle from a hexagon or triangle. You can see several of these shapes at once, even if they're hiding "behind" one another, because of your third-dimensional view. You could even look inside a shape to see his "organs." You could see into the privacy of that shape's home because you're looking down into it rather than from the side like a Flatlander would. This seems trivial to us, but would be unfathomable to someone in Flatland. A Flatlander would understand forward, backward, left, and right, but wouldn't even be able to imagine such a thing as "up" or "down" because those directions don't exist in the 2nd dimension.

Still with me? Just the one? Oh, well I'm sure the other guy had somewhere to be. Now it gets a little hairy...

If a Sphere were to visit Flatland, he would be perceived in the same way a circle would. Our narrator, A Square, "feeling" the sides of the Sphere would find a smooth circle and that's it. The difference would be that a Sphere could change the size of that perceived "circle" or even disappear entirely depending on how it moved through the plane of Flatland. Imagine the sphere rose up through Flatland. Its existence would be perceived by a Square as starting at a single point, then growing larger until it reached its equator, then shrinking again down to a single point, then popping entirely out of existence. In reality the sphere merely made an appearance in the dimension that the Square could perceive.

While the Square struggles to understand what just happened, the Sphere looks on in amusement at the limited perspective of those in a dimension lower than himself. He can see inside, outside, behind, around, and on every side of a shape simultaneously while the Square is flipping his lid trying to understand "up." The Sphere's motility and powers of observation seem magical and unbelievable, even though it's the simplest thing in the world depending on your perspective and dimension.

Next, the Sphere takes the Square on a journey through the third dimension, known as "Spaceland." The Square is shown things that his mind couldn't even imagine. Spheres, cubes, and polyhedra of every type are suddenly made visible. He's introduced to impossible concepts and beings of seemingly incredible power. These beings turn, rotate, float, and move in new, mind-boggling ways. Light and color now have surfaces to reflect from. He can see the entirety of shapes that before he could only see or feel one edge at a time. In reality, the Sphere merely allowed the Square to see and move through a dimension one higher than his own. He could still be comfortably seated in his own house but now he's looking up, which was impossible before.

Now imagine A Square describing this to people who didn't see it for themselves. A voice introduces himself, then a being appears out of nowhere, grows, shrinks, then disappears. This being could also see everything. Even when you hid in your closet, he could see you plain as day. Then he takes you somewhere not far from your home but completely unreachable and introduces you to shapes whose powers seem mystical and unbelievable.

In a universe such as that of Flatland, as a being is raised from his own dimension to a higher one he is able to perceive and do things that seem impossible to those below.

Anyone left? No? Well I'm gonna finish anyway.

Now imagine a being in the 4th dimension looking at us. Such a being could see things hidden from our eyes. He could see and travel through walls, appear and disappear at will, and interact with our reality in ways we've never seen. His "body" might touch on our plane of existence, but we would only be seeing the 3-dimensional part of him that he allows to appear. In the 4th dimension the x, y, and z axes are all joined perpendicularly by the w axis. Directions like up, down, left, right, forward, and backward would be joined by ana and kata, directions only traveled in the 4th dimension or higher, directions that we simply can't wrap our heads around because all we know are three dimensions.

A being in even higher dimensions could travel through time. A being in dimensions higher than that could see events from the past, present, and future simultaneously. Space and time would be just eight of the dozens of directions in which this being could see and travel. The details of our entire lives, our whole universe, would be laid out as plainly as the blueprint to a building.

I submit to you that the power and omniscience of God are, in part, derived from His residing on a dimension much higher than our own. Think of how God's omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence are described in scripture:

The Lord’s eyes see and know all men’s works: D&C 121:24

The past, present, and future are continually before the Lord: D&C 130:7

All things are present with God: Moses 1:6

The eyes of the Lord are in every place: Prov. 15:3

Now this "higher-dimensional being" theory would seem to contradict one of the core beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because we, as Latter-day Saints, believe that God has a tangible body of flesh and bone. I liken this to the Square seeing a circle when the Sphere visited him. God has a body like a Sphere has a circle. Yes, the Sphere is a circle, but that is only a part of the entire being. That's merely a protrusion into observable space. The fact that there's more doesn't negate the fact that the Sphere is a circle or that God has a body, it's just that so much of him is unobservable to our natural eyes limited to the 3rd dimension.

Look in 1 John 3:2.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

In order to see God as He truly is, our bodies must be changed and our perceptions altered. A transfiguration must take place. The dictionary definition of "transfigure" means "transform into something more beautiful or elevated" (emphasis mine). It seems that transfiguration, the process by which man can perceive the true form of God and withstand his presence, is an elevation of our form to a higher dimension.

We, ourselves, are also higher dimensional beings in a way. Our spirits are made of higher-dimensional matter chained to our three-dimensional bodies. Even Joseph Smith said something very similar:

"There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; we cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter" (D&C 131:7-8 emphasis mine).

Everything is matter, but some matter can't be seen by our natural eyes. That sounds like a Square being pushed into a higher dimension to me. Moses spoke of such an opening of the eyes as the heavens being opened:

"3 And it came to pass that I turned and went up on the mount; and as I stood upon the mount, I beheld the heavens open, and I was clothed upon with glory;

4 And I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me, even as a man talketh one with another, face to face; and he said unto me: Look, and I will show unto thee the world for the space of many generations" (Moses 7:3-4).

Look! That word! If our spiritual eyes are allowed, through transfiguration, to look in the right direction we can begin to see dimensions beyond our own, even the one where God Himself resides.

I believe that attaining permanent residence on such a dimension is the whole point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. In order to progress and rise and expand and grow to be able to perceive and move through these higher dimensions, we have to prepare ourselves. Not just our bodies, but our spirits. A process that is totally beyond my comprehension is in place to purify our beings in preparation for our ascension to the dwelling place of God.

The funny thing about all of this talk of dimensions, though, is that it doesn't matter at all. In the grand scheme of things this is all just tiddlywinks. Everything I just wrote about could be 100% true or 100% false and it wouldn't affect the Gospel of Jesus Christ one iota. If the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation are the roadmap to eternal salvation, this whole idea I just wrote about is similar to meditating on the metallurgy behind the signs that tell you where the ducks cross the road. It may be interesting to some, but it's so insignificant when compared to things like Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, not to mention the thousands of other principles that still escape us. They'll never teach this idea in Sunday School because almost all of us are still struggling with the most important stuff. I figure those who make it to the Celestial Kingdom will study this all in depth at some point when it might actually be useful.

I do, however, think of this stuff every time a scientist starts pontificating about the idiocy of a bearded wizard in the sky creating everything. "How preposterous! There is no God and you're an idiot for thinking that an invisible being in any way affects the goings-on of us important people here on the 3rd dimension!" When I hear things like that I just chuckle and think of A Square.