I love fractals.

They have many interesting mathematical properties.  Even though I am a confessed math nerd, it is not primarily the math that attracts me. I love their intrinsic beauty. How can a person not love a picture such as the one below?

    
Let me tell you a little bit (just a little) about fractals. Intuitively we think of a line or curve as being one dimensional, a surface as being two dimensional, and a solid as being three dimensional.

Fractals, though, are more complicated. For example, the fractal above takes up more of the plane than a simple curve, but less than a filled in region.  Its dimension is actually a fraction between one and two, maybe something like 1.378. Hence the name “fractal” reflects its fractional dimension.

If you’re still with me, I’d like to share one more feature of fractals.  Its called a self-similarity property. The two pictures above are related; the second is obtained  by enlarging the region in the black box of the first. Notice that a lot of the features look the same as those in the first picture. If we were to enlarge a region (any region) of the right hand picture, we would again find lots of parts that look like those in the original. Even if continued this over and over again until the total area of our picture were a miniscule part of the original, we would find the same thing. Amazing!

Are there similarities between fractals and Christianity?  There are many of us Christians all over the world.  As a part of our discipleship, we each study the Bible and other writings.  We examine the basis of our religion from many different viewpoints and at different levels of detail.

As with fractals, it’s a beautiful sight.  And, there are certain features that are apparent in every picture regardless of how narrow the view.  To mention two: the redemptive power of Jesus’ death on the cross, and God’s freely given grace.  No matter how closely we look, we will see the unconditional love that God has for YOU and me.

Jim