Around the time when I was born, in the late 1960s, James T. Russell invented the technology behind the Compact Disc. Russell was a huge music fan and wanted to enjoy it via media that recorded the music with better precision than LPs and cassettes. The writable CD comprises a thin layer of dye sandwiched between a layer of protective polycarbonate and a layer of aluminum. Lazar light passes through the (normally translucent) dye, bouncing off the aluminum and back out. A higher-powered lazar, then, will “burn” a dark dot that acts as a “0” and passes back to make a space – “1,” and so on, creating a binary code of information.
This first type of CD cannot be changed—the code is burned, indelible. Developers, then, drew from a fundamental premise of chemistry that atoms are arranged differently based on configuration and state (liquid, gas, solid): Replacing the dye with a layer of metallic alloy that can exist in two discrete solid forms and shift between the two, a lazar can alter a spot to crystalline (reflective “1”) or amorphous (non-reflective “0”) and back again. Now it is rewritable, a CD-RW. DVDs and Blu-rays work on the same principle. DVDs are forged with red lazar beams that produce light waves with a wavelength of 650 nanometers (less than 100th the width of a human hair), and Blu-rays use the still shorter wavelength emitted by blue light.
These days, on some days, I feel like an LP etched in unyielding grooves save the scratches that accumulate and distort the information stored within. I wonder if I’ve become too worn and scratched to play anything pleasing or beautiful that others might enjoy. Or will they tire of straining past the scratched bits and the places that repeat, and repeat, and repeat until someone lifts the needle past the rants and move it to the next spot. Some days I fear that I am become as irrelevant as that record, everything changing in nanoseconds around me as my body aches and groans, grooved and scratched, while infinitesimal nanoscaled wavelength’s of light dodge and burn unfathomable ideas and technologies. Some days.
And then my sons come home from school and plop themselves down on the chair in my office, tell me how they hate school . . . and then how this kid told him he would totally win the debate, or how that teacher plays math games on the chalkboard with him before school . . . . And I remember that we are much more like that Blu-ray – and really, containing infinitely more information because God’s word is written on my heart and is stored there where bits become alternatively crystalline and amorphous, rewriting my story, again and again and again . . . with the same infinite supply of information . . . .
And the Word became flesh . . . and dwelt among us . . . and in him is life and the life is the light of all people . . . grace and truth . . . God’s heart . . . unfathomable love. And love does not become scratched. It yields and heals and rewrites, perfects, never fails. Sometimes I am afraid. Things change – and remain the same. God never changes and I do. So, it’s all right. Today I’ll put my records on, go ahead and let my hair down.
Reblogged this on Howie's Blog and commented:
Good word! Also makes me think of Romans 7 – the “Do-do Chapter” with the whole stuck needle playing something over and over. The needle needs to be nudged to Romans 8! 🙂