Turned Around

Here is the latter part of an NPR article about why human beings cannot walk in a straight line for an extended period of time while blind-folded. This article seems to say something about the human heart as well. Where do we end up if we do not look to Christ as our "corrective" or "external focal point"? If an analogy is to be drawn, I would say that we end up exactly where we started - nowhere.

"Humans, apparently, slip into circles when we can't see an external focal point, like a mountain top, a sun, a moon. Without a corrective, our insides take over and there’s something inside us that won't stay straight.

In our radio broadcast, Jan and I explore (just hit the "Listen" button on this page) possible explanations for this tendency to slip into turns. Maybe, I suggest, this is a form of left or right handedness where one side dominates the other? Or maybe this is a reflection of our left and right brains spitting out different levels of dopamine? Or maybe it's stupidly simple: Most of us have slightly different sized legs or slightly stronger appendages on one side and this little difference, over enough steps, mounts up?

Wrong, wrong and wrong, Jan says. He's tested all three propositions (the radio story describes the details) and didn't get the predicted results. There is, apparently, no single explanation for this phenomenon. He is working on a multi-causal theory.

So like walking in circles, we finish where we started: with Asa Schaeffer's very simple field studies, his graceful pencil lines (especially when our animator Benjamin Arthur gives them beautiful motion) posing the puzzle: How can we be turning and turning and not know it?"