Sam Matteson

Graffiti on the Wall

I begin this blog with trepidation.  I was taught long ago that “fool’s names, like fool’s faces, always appear in public places.”  So in the public virtual space between us lies a blank wall on which I will presume to scrawl the graffiti of my thoughts.  I can only hope that they are well considered and carefully articulated . . . and of interest to you. But you will decide that.

About this “Fool”

This fool is a physicist–the term reveals as much who I am as what I do.  I am also a writer–indeed, one who aspires to communicate effectively and beautifully.  As to my credentials? I serve as a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of North Texas, an institution that yearns to be a major research university when it grows up.  Like an overgrown adolescent it is a Baby Huey with over 36,000 students.

For over twenty years, I have taught a few hundred of them each year topics like Musical Acoustics, Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism etc.  But have no fear,  I do not plan to inflict these topics on you unless you choose to go there.  On the other hand,  a healthy person must be a whole person and thus how I view the world will peak out in what I say; of this I am sure.

A World with a View

Since my worldview, my Weltanschauung, is grounded in a Critical Realist’s perspective, I am persuaded that there is indeed a Reality quite apart from my own wish fulfillment.  Moreover, at the same time, I am persuaded that the way of Rab Jeshua, Joshua called the Messiah (for such is his name), a.k.a. Jesus Christ, Jesu Criste, Yasu al-Masih, IHCOYC XPICTOC  (Greek for “Iesous Christos”) provides the most satisfying answers to life’s ultimate questions.

By His life, sacrificial death and ratifying return to life, He has made a way for me to know God–actually know God–not just know about Him.  This duality of perspectives has, of course, put my mind and spirit into tension for over half a century–for my soul’s good I believe.  In these “pages” I will explore what  I have observed and will share what I think I have learned in my peregrinacion del mundo.

Thus, in this space I propose to share essays, poems, stories fiction and non, but always true, creative writing exploring the twin realities:  external and internal, the physical and the meta-physical.

Welcome, pilgrim!