My Son Wins the Pinewood!!!!!!!

Well, I'm proud to say that my son won his Pack's Pinewood Derby today! Fastest overall in his den and fastest overall in the Pack! Our Pack used a new track, timer, and software connected to my laptop to capture the times. It was a very nice setup and made the heats run very quickly and eliminated any tense moments around who won/lost a heat.

Ok, do you want to know why I think he won? It?s all about the physics of how an object accelerates through a fluid (air). On earth, an object travels at 32 feet/second² when dropped. Drop a golf ball on your foot. It hurts a little, but no big deal. Now drop the same ball from 30 feet in the air. When it hits your foot, its going to hurt more (um, don?t try this at home) because it built up additional speed. The build up of speed is known as potential energy. If you consider the shape of a typical Pinewood track, you?ll see that the sloped section is shorter than the flat section. What this means is that you need the weight of the car as far back on the car as possible without causing wheelies so that the car builds as much potential energy as possible. Both visual observations and the times support the discussion above in that cars like my son's pulled away only during the last 1/3 of the flat section.

As for design, we shaved off about 2/3 of the original car block into a simple wedge shape. Not too interesting, but since this year was my son's last, we were going for one thing: SPEED! Then we put two ounces of weight under the rear axle and almost another two ounces over the top. Yep, the rear was a ball of lead and tape but it just didn?t matter. At a record time of 2.5757 seconds, looks just don?t matter when the race is being decided by hundreths of a second!

A Scout is Trustworthy

References

• Exodus 20:16: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
  
• Ecclesiastes 7:1 "A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth."
  
• Webster's Dictionary: "worthy of confidence."

As Christians, are we worthy of confidence? Can others trust us with simple or complex matters? Can friends or an employer trust us with confidential information or time-sensitive tasks? Can the Lord Jesus Christ trust us to carry out his mission to minister to those that do not know him and to serve others?

Christ sets an example for life in general. Our model of behavior and choices should reflect that of the teachings and life of Christ himself. Christ, who is God, Jehovah, is worthy of our trust. He has demonstrated His worthiness of our trust by numerous promises in the Bible for the deliverance of Israel from a plethora of enemies not the least of which include Egypt and the Philistines. Perhaps the most significant promise/fulfillment pair in the Bible is the promise of the birth of Messiah, His subsequent death, and, most important of all, His resurrection! We as Christians should reflect the same trustworthiness with our relationships with others. This includes siblings, friends, spouses, and employers. Does a brother payback a sister who loans money? Does a friend return a borrowed power tool? Does a spouse trust another with his/her's devotion and love? Does an employer trust an employee to execute work in a timely fashion?

Trust is one of those concepts that is generally rewound or reset when it's broken. Picture if you will a military obstacle course. When one fails at one obstacle, say the rope wall, a lenient Drill Instructor (DI) may choose to allow the soldier to repeat just this obstacle before proceeding. Trust works a bit differently - the DI sends you back to the beginning of the course. When we break the trust or our own reliability with someone else, it takes time to recover and re-establish the relationship of trust.

Not to over-militarize the analogies, but the Army Rangers have a motto "Leave no man behind". They take this very seriously. In short, if a man is wounded or killed, they will haul the man out, no exceptions. The reliance on each other is critical in combat situations otherwise individuals, and more importantly the mission, are jeopardized. In the recent Iraqi Freedom conflict, pictures of U.S. soldiers were displayed on national TV where they were seen digging the ground with their bare hands looking for their fallen comrades. In my opinion, this behavior is clear evidence that Rangers can trust each other and be trusted with matters of National Security.

Trust, like respect, is earned. By repeated successful performance of trust-sensitive tasks, one learns that one can depend on another. It starts simple and early in life. If I tell my son to go upstairs and brush his teeth and he does it over and over, I begin to trust him and then increase the number and type of things that I trust him with. If he fails to brush his teeth and instead paints the bathroom with toothpaste or goes in his room to play with his Jedi Light Saber, then we need to "rewind" and work on the one item until I as his father can trust him. This concept extends to employers, clients, governments, and vendors, as one grows older. We trust companies like IBM and Sears to deliver quality products and service to us for use in everyday life. Both have been in existence for many years and have specific products that one can trust, even when they break. As a college student working for Sears, I've replaced many a broken tool with no questions asked when returned to the hardware department.

I suppose trust doesn't imply that the one being trusted, except for our Lord, is perfect either. We all have our weak points and others may know those "holes in our armor". What is important is that one realizes one's weaknesses and is willing to confront and reconcile those faults when confronted or to be proactive and confront those who have been wronged by our own inadequacies. It's our mutual trust in Christ that can bridge the gap between our human faults and His Divine potential for our lives.