Slippery Slope

Math­e­mat­ics can be a slip­pery slope. Not the fal­la­cy that we all like to argue about, but rather a well worn ramp that we slide down reluc­tant­ly at first and then excit­ed­ly, gain­ing speed with zest! We begin the adven­ture down in our young years when we mar­vel at the beau­ti­ful crea­tures that God made and how they are both pre­dictable and wild. Each fall brings the migrat­ing geese, while the spring blooms with song birds. These pat­terns are first beau­ti­ful to us, but then we want to know more. What are these pat­terns and what do they com­mu­ni­cate about the cre­ator? What is the truth behind the beauty? 

We dive into the world of Alge­bra where we are excit­ed to learn how the pat­terns of the world are explained and pre­dict­ed, but get hung up with the gram­mar of a new lan­guage. We reluc­tant­ly wres­tle with new expres­sions, sen­tences, and rules. Enter­ing Geom­e­try, we glimpse the pat­tern’s beau­ty again while under­stand­ing some of the lan­guage that we need to com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly. We have start­ed to slip fur­ther down the slope. 

Pre­cal­cu­lus and trigonom­e­try are where we gain speed. All at once, the mys­ter­ies of the world are revealed to us in a whole new way. We know how to com­mu­ni­cate with vari­ables and chang­ing val­ues, and we start to see how to trans­late the world’s pat­terns into this lan­guage. It is beau­ti­ful yes, but its truth and good­ness are now evi­dent to us and we take joy in the jour­ney. We now know that the strug­gle is worth it. That we want to know how to under­stand more of the world and pre­dict more of nature, know more about God, and bask in His glo­ry. We suc­cess­ful­ly slide down the ramp see­ing that the work the Lord gives us is hard, but not burdensome.