Friday, February 8, 2013

The Chemistry of Crystals. . . and Why it Matters



My normal morning rush out the door is cut short this morning by the sight that awaits me. White fog lays low over the tree tops and the stillness is broken only by an occasional waft of cool air. I walk slowly up to a usually barren tree branch and my jaw slackens a little. Covering the stem is a spiky, breathtaking fur of sparkling ice crystals. Some hug the branch closely while others dare to brave the air a good half an inch from their base. But this tree is not an exception. All along the mile drive to campus, the naked, dark groves of trees among the houses and by the reservoir have been turned into a winter forest of contrasts. For once, I don’t push the speed limit or rush my walk to class. Something about the tiny, brittle ice crystals delights my heart. Untamed, savage delicacy.

I make it through algebra and scribble notes furiously in chemistry, hoping that the crystals will still be there when I’m done. They are. I meander through an errand and watch the snowy white birds wheel and sing over the hard winter lake with the wonderful black and white forest that guards it. And God starts whispering. About the ice crystals and their chemistry.

This is a short summary of what I understand about water (science people, please correct me if I’m wrong). A water molecule is made out of three very small atoms- two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The oxygen atom is held to each hydrogen atom by a very strong bond called a covalent bond. There are several types of bonds between atoms but covalent bonds are the strongest. Each atom is trying to get enough of these little negatively charged electrons swirling around it so that it can be stable- complete, if you will. Hydrogen needs one more electron and oxygen needs two more electrons. So the two hydrogen atoms and the oxygen atom get together, and each atom shares a part of itself, the electron, with the other atom to fill each other’s electron needs. The shared electrons then swirl around and between both atoms. But oxygen pulls harder on hydrogen’s electrons than hydrogen does on oxygen’s, so most of the time these little negatively charged electrons hang out closer to oxygen’s end of the molecule. This gives the oxygen end a slightly negative charge and the hydrogen ends a slightly positive charge, like having a magnet with a positive end and a negative end. So scientists and other smart people call this a polar molecule (polar is kind of like magnetic).

Stick with me here. You’re probably asking, so what? Trust me, I ask that question every day I’m sitting through another confusing class of chemistry. But maybe this is the so what. What if God made atomic bonds as an example of His relationship with us? You see, there are other atoms, called noble gasses, that already have all the electrons they need by themselves. They are naturally complete, so they are very stable and independent. The goal of all of the other atoms is to be like the noble gasses, which is why they get together and share electrons.

God is like a noble gas. Complete in Himself and perfect. God doesn’t need anything, particularly anything we could offer him. But what if a noble gas saw, let’s say an oxygen atom, and offered to share two of its electrons with oxygen so that oxygen would have enough electrons and could be complete? In this kind of hypothetical reaction, the oxygen would bring nothing to the relationship. While to my very little knowledge a noble gas in nature would not actually do this, God does. In his unthinkable compassion, He offers to share His love and His vision with us. And in that relationship, in that love, in His sharing of Himself, we are made complete and whole.

Hang on a minute- there’s another principle here. The three atoms that make up water would never resemble a noble gas apart. God uses the process of us as the church working together, sharing our good, bad, and ugly with each other, to refine us and make us more like Him. Apart, we would never be stable. Without each other, we will never be a complete picture of who He is for those who so desperately need Him. We need each other.

But it gets even better. When a whole bunch of water molecules are in the same place and very close together (otherwise known as a liquid or a solid), the molecules have very special relationships with each other. Because the each end of a single molecule has either a positive charge or a negative charge, it is attracted to the molecules next to it. Lots of compounds do that, but oxygen atom in water pulls unusually hard on hydrogen’s electrons. So it’s not only polar- it is REALLY polar. And because water is also a really small molecule, the molecules are really close together and that oxygen end pulls really hard on the hydrogen ends of its other water neighbors. This is called a hydrogen bond and it is very difficult to break. In order for water to move from ice to liquid to gas, these bonds have to become less and less strong and allow the other molecules to slip around (melt) or fly away (turn into steam). It takes an unusually high amount of heat to break these bonds in water.
 Perhaps God is calling us as the church to be as closely bonded together as those water molecules are. Perhaps if we hunker down and hold tightly to each other, refusing to let the heat of a broken world (and our own broken natures) break our bond, we will become a breathtakingly powerful and beautiful image of our noble Rescuer. Maybe we will delicately cover the barrenness of a heart’s winter and bring a sparkling hope to our world.

Or maybe we will let the heat make us fly apart. It is our choice.

The heat has melted the spiky fur of ice from the trees as I finish this entry. I did not expect its beautiful crystals to make chemistry feel worth the headache. But between the both of them, they have left me with a new understanding of how God relates to me and how I should relate with you. I’m so glad that God interrupted my rushed Friday morning with His ice crystals.


Note: Unfortunately, my camera was broken last year by a mistaken encounter with a floor. Props to Google Images for the pictures!