Religion

It could happen to anyone, anytime

Dear Reader, I crashed tonight and am just waking up.  Work today was trying following a three-day weekend and a couple of unfortunate tragedies that happened yesterday.  Our office spent the day fighting many fires.  On days like these, I’m reminded that I’m not getting any younger.  I just finished a three-day weekend, and I still felt like I’d gone ten rounds in a boxing match.  Kudos to my wife for taking care of our son this evening without me.  She usually puts him to sleep, but I try to spend at least two hours each night playing with him after I get home.  Unfortunately, tonight I crashed and didn’t spend much time with him.  I will tomorrow.
 
Tonight, after I awoke, I thought about people who seem to have everything who suddenly become unfortunate victims of tragedy.  No, I am not really being fatalistic.  I’m recalling two unfortunate events that recently transpired–the one year anniversary of the Tsunami in Southeast Asia and Africa and the funeral of the son of Indianapolis Colts’ Coach Tony Dungy.  I know you know about the Tsunami; if you live in the U.S., you probably have heard the story of how Coach Dungy’s teenage son very likely took his own life, an unexpected, terrible tragedy for a family to bear.
 
December 26, 2004, the day of the Tsunami, seems so long ago, yet I know it is still fresh in many people’s minds.  I’m disappointed by sparse American media coverage of the first anniversary of this tragedy, just as I was with coverage of the tragic earthquake in Pakistan.  Events of this magnitude impact so many people, especially those who are left behind.  I think they deserve more than a one-minute headline.  I thought about the families of Tsunami victims who traveled to the sites where they lost their loved ones one year ago.  At the same time, I remembered the Dungy family, who buried their son.  Just a few weeks ago, the Dungys were on top of the world.  Their father’s team, the Colts, was on the verge of a perfect football season.  Now, the family must grapple with the loss of a loved one.  Neither the Tsunami nor the death of James Dungy were very expected.  It reminds me of how life can change in an instant.  Sometimes life-changing events are positive ones, but sometimes the event could be tragic.  Times like these remind me to live life to the fullest, because I’ll never know what will happen tomorrow.

Much ado about nothing

This may be a first.  I’m sitting here, wondering what to write about in my blog tonight.  Usually a topic pops into my head right away.  Or I can always talk about what’s happening in Korea or on the home front.  Well, my sister-in-law and nephew went back home to Shanghai, China today, so I suppose that I could talk about that (they had a great trip, but are glad to be headed back to wild and crazy Shanghai).  Nah, I’d rather talk about nothing.  That’s right, nothing.
 
What is nothing? 
 
What does nothing mean?
 
When someone asks you what you’re thinking, and you answer, "Oh, nothing," do you really mean you’re thinking of nothing?
 
When you think there’s nothing there, is there really nothing there?
 
When they called "Seinfeld" the TV show about nothing, was it really a show about nothing?
 
When you say that someone is doing nothing, are they really doing nothing?
 
Of course not.
 
There’s always something.  Something there.  You’re thinking about something.  The person doing nothing is actually doing something.
 
So I guess you could say that there is no such thing as nothing.
 
Maybe I’m wrong.
 
Can you think of something that’s actually nothing at all?
 
I can’t.
 
Perhaps a black hole is nothing. 
 
A black hole is an imploded star with matter collapsing in on itself.
 
That sounds like something to me.
 
Maybe nothing is inside a vacuum tube.  Suck all the air out of a vacuum tube and what do you have left? 
 
Well, you can look through the vacuum tube if its glass.  If the light passes through it, there must be something there.
 
Maybe there’s nothing in sub-atomic space.  An atom consists of a proton surrounded by neutrons. 
 
But then there’s gluons, which are even smaller than neutrons, floating about an atom. 
 
Who’s to say that there isn’t something smaller than a gluon that we have not yet discovered?
 
Maybe there’s nothing in space. 
 
If you can see the sky, look up at the night sky and see all the stars. 
 
There’s definitely something there.
 
I have concluded that nothing really is something.
 
Nothing is never quite what it seems.

Have you ever thought?

Right now you are breathing.
 
You just blinked.
 
Your blood just circulated through most of your body.
 
You right hand is resting on the computer keyboard or mouse.
 
You just thought about your body’s movements.
 
Isn’t it amazing how much we take for granted?
 
Can you believe how much we do unconsciously?
 
Aren’t you glad you don’t have to think about it?