Winged Chariot

“But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” Andrew Marvell, a 17th century English poet. (https://mailchi.mp/writerswrite/daily-writing-links-31-march-2021?e=d513f9e6a1)

I breakfasted with a friend today. Like me he is over 75. I asked if he read the obits. He said, “Yes.”

He reminded me of the late Carl Reiner’a remark about obituaries. “Every morning, I would actually look at the obituaries before I had breakfast. And as a joke I said if I was not in it, I would have breakfast.” (https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/carl_reiner_999030#)

So my friend and I finnished breakfast but not as eagerly as when we were 25. Though, at 25, with the horrors of Nam breathing down our necks via the Draft, Time’s winged chariot did seem awfully close.

But that fear can be cast out. About 2.4 billion of the approximately 7.5 billion people on earth are Christians. We believe that Christ conquered death dying for our sins.

No less a theologian than the world renown, Oxford scholar NT Wright has written The Resurrection of the Son of God arguing for the evidence that strongly supports the truth of the Resurrection. The world has far more documentation of the key events of Jesus’ life than anything else in the First Century.

As about 1/3 of the world celebrates that He is risen on Sunday, consider if you will the power of this good news. I am reminded of the composer Wallis Willis’ words, “Swing low sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home.”

Oh Those Finite Quantities

I was at Emory University as a freshman. The year was 1963. That was 58 years ago but sometimes it seems like yesterday.

We had chemistry lab each Friday afternoon that winter quarter. Those Fridays already started with a 7:45 a.m. freeze, as, I rambled across campus to the chemistry building for lectures.

One needs to understand that details were the driving factor in precipitating my retirement almost eight years ago. In essence lab could have been called details 101.

There I was measuring quantities so small a blink could botch the experiment. Were grown adults actually making us go through this? One good sneeze could destroy my experiment as well as those of the students on either side of me. That act could have caused my death by bunsen burner at 18.

It should come as no surprise to you that I did not spend the rest of my life measuring out micro-quantities in laboratories. Nor did I sit through bad movies or attend the ice capades.