{"id":84,"date":"2020-09-08T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=84"},"modified":"2020-12-02T18:17:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T23:17:42","slug":"velcro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/08\/velcro\/","title":{"rendered":"Velcro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Who knew that walking your dog could help make the world a more \u201csecure\u201d place, and one day provide encouragement for people in the midst of a pandemic?

Swiss engineer George De Mestrel had no such expectations back in 1948 when he and his dog emerged from the woods covered with cockleburs, those spiky seeds that hitch rides on canine fur and human clothing.

Engineers approach life with an innate curiosity.  Instead of pitching the burrs into the wastebasket, De Mestrel examined a few of them closely.  How do these things work?<\/em>

Peering through a microscope, De Mestrel discovered that each burr had thousands of tiny hooks that grabbed onto anything within close range.

He began to wonder:  Could he create a two-sided fastener with similar properties?

De Mestrel spent the next eight years staring at matted dog hair under his microscope (and who wouldn\u2019t want to do that?) and ultimately obtained a patent for a product he described with these words:  \u201cSpecial napped piles of man-made material with some of these loops having the means of hooking near their ends.\u201d 

Or as we know it today:  Velcro, <\/em>De Mestrel\u2019s hybrid of the two French words \u201cvelour\u201d and \u201ccrochet.\u201d

This cocklebur-inspired invention has proven to be stunningly versatile.  With 300 tiny nylon hooks per square inch, Velcro has been used to \u201ctie\u201d our kids\u2019 shoes, anchor the ballpoint pen at the bank, secure loose objects in zero gravity in outer space, and revolutionize surgery \u2013 as evidenced by the fact that the two pumping chambers of the original Jarvik 7-70 artificial heart were fastened by Velcro.

Not to mention the sheer joy of \u201csticking the landing\u201d on a vertical wall while wearing a Velcro Spiderman suit. 

Now, if only we could figure out a way to keep people <\/em>attached to each other – something that’s been more challenging than ever during the summer of 2020.

God has proposed just such a way:  \u201cServe one another humbly in love\u201d (Galatians 5:13).  What might that look like?

A therapist asked a client if he knew the point at which his marriage of several decades had begun to unravel.  \u201cIt was when she stopped putting toothpaste on my toothbrush in the morning.\u201d  Ever since their honeymoon, this couple had practiced a simple ritual of dental companionship:  Whoever got up first squeezed toothpaste onto the other\u2019s brush.  But then came the day when life became, \u201cI\u2019ve got mine, you take care of yours.\u201d

Love usually comes down to doing the little things. 

A friend sends an email to a friend on a tough anniversary:  \u201cJust want you to know you\u2019re on my heart today.\u201d  A woman, noticing the shopper ahead of her is clearly struggling to make ends meet, tells the store clerk, \u201cPlease put her groceries on my VISA card.\u201d 

A businessman drops a note to the woman who taught him high school English 30 years ago:  Thank you.  <\/em>A daughter calls her mom every day \u2013 not because there\u2019s anything new to talk about, but just to check in.  A friend goes on Amazon and buys his pal some gear emblazoned with the logo of his favorite NFL team.  Just because it\u2019s a neat thing to do.

One of life\u2019s great secrets is incredibly simple:  The more you are attentive to someone else\u2019s interests and needs, including their humblest hopes and fears, the more you will feel love for them.  And the more they will feel deeply loved.

And the more we will be able to stick together, even when we’re miles apart. 

That\u2019s the magic of Relational Velcro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who knew that walking your dog could help make the world a more \u201csecure\u201d place, and one day provide encouragement for people in the midst of a pandemic? Swiss engineer George De Mestrel had no such expectations back in 1948 when he and his dog emerged from the woods covered with cockleburs, those spiky seeds that hitch rides on canine fur… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,6,21],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-inventions","tag-science","tag-staying-connected"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/85"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}