I’ve been
thinking lately about something called an ‘angle of repose.’ I suppose
engineers, geologists and soil scientists are familiar with the concept, but I only
became aware of it when Wallace Stegner’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the
same name was recommended to me.
The phrase sounds
like the position I might be in while lying down on some pleasant grassy
hillside, or the degree to which I put the passenger seat back on a long drive
when Gail has taken over at the wheel and I want to grab a little snooze. But
it’s actually a very technical term. The Merriam-Webster
Dictionary defines it thus: “The angle that the plane of
contact between two bodies makes with the horizontal when the upper body is
just on the point of sliding; the angle whose tangent is the
coefficient of friction between the two bodies.” (Don’t you just hate it when you read a
definition and still don’t have a clue what the thing means?) Wikipedia sets it down only slightly better:
“The steepest angle of
descent (or dip), relative to the horizontal plane, to which a granular
material can be piled without slumping.” Slumping. What a great word. I don’t need
a definition of that one. My mother told me “Quit slumping!” all the time, and
she wasn’t talking about my baseball batting average.
More simply, and no
thanks to the dictionaries, an angle of repose is the maximum angle at which a loose
substance of some kind can be at rest without sliding, falling, avalanching or
cascading downward due to the force of gravity. Rockslide? Mudslide? Avalanche?
Rocks, mud or snow have exceeded their angle of repose. Some carnivorous insect
larvae even create traps in dry sand that take advantage of the concept, with
their lair opening at the bottom of a cone-shaped entrance; if some unwitting
bug blunders over the edge, it usually cannot help but tumble among grains of
sand down to the waiting predator below, much like that crazy Jabba the Hutt
scene in the early Star Wars movie, whichever one it was.
You fell out of a
hammock? Well, you get the idea. You’ve exceeded the angle of repose.
Literally.
The steepness of
the angle changes with different substances. Smooth, rounded sand can ‘rest’ at
one angle and rough-edged sand a steeper one, a pile of smoothed river rock at
one angle and chunks of jagged granite again steeper. Combining substances can also
change the angle. Make rounded sand grains wet and the angle of repose
increases greatly due to the electrostatic attraction of water to the sand
surface. Ever try to make a sand castle with dry sand? Wet works better, no?
Here’s the thing.
The phrase sounds restful, but it is not. An angle of repose is actually a
fairly dangerous position. To be at rest at one’s angle of repose does not necessarily
mean to be at ease. If a substance is at that angle, it won’t fall. Or slump.
But just barely. So as inviting as the phrase sounds, you and I typically require
more leeway than just being barely a misstep away from a slump.
This leeway can also
be called margin. Do you have any? The margin to make a mistake and not suffer
catastrophically? To suffer a setback and not have it ruin your life? To be
injured accidentally and have the wherewithal to heal? I sometimes feel we
moderns have put ourselves out there so close to the edge that, metaphorically,
we leave no shoulders on our highways. We push ourselves constantly toward our
tipping points, to pick up the angle image again. Jesus said, “Do not worry (Matthew 6:25),” the
Apostle Paul, “Be anxious for nothing
(Philippians 4:6).” Yet our lives are often nearly filled with anxieties and
apprehensions, angsts and fears.
Jesus said, “Do not worry,”
yet our lives are filled
with anxieties
and apprehensions, angsts
and fears.
What might it
take to creep a few degrees away from our angles of repose? By getting a little
more rest? By praying several times each day? By meeting comfortably with a few
close friends more often? By putting away the smartphones or playing less
Pokémon Go? By taking a slow saunter in a natural setting from time to time? By
eating slower and exercising more? By reading a good book? By memorizing Psalm
23? By limiting opinion radio or television? By getting down on the floor with
a child? By shopping less, or spending less screen time? By serving others? By
meditating on the love of God?
At a key time in
my life when I needed leeway, I read the classic Margin, by Dr. Richard Swenson. It was subtitled “How to Create the Emotional, Physical, Financial
and Time Reserves You Need.” Though the book was first published over
twenty-five years ago, it has been revised since and remains a book for anyone
who yearns for relief from the pressure of overload. Or of being too dangerously
near their angle of repose.
I don’t know about
you, but I don’t even want to live anywhere close to it.
Now, about that
hammock…
~~ RGM, October 30 2019
