The lesson of this fairy tale is often lost – that the less appreciated among us are often the most valuable.  Who would have thought that my little brother, who only played amateur league basketball in high school, would someday play as  first string center for Boston College at Madison Square Garden?  He was later sidelined by a retina problem.  Did that stop him?  No, he went on to become the first Ph.D. in our family.

There was some providence in there.  I had wanted to go to Boston College, and that’s how seeds are sown.  He was in the right place at the right time.  Say no more about providence; the Lord had things sewed up for higher education.

We don’t believe there is a wonderful ending waiting for us; we don’t see it because of life’s problems.  But my youngest brother never blinked.  He just went ahead with full confidence, and though life threw him some curve balls later in times at bat, the history stands.

History is full of strange coincidences that have benefited humankind.  The coronavirus might be one.  We’ll see.  But I’m going to mention two visible to me.

The first is the appearance of George Washington in the apparently doomed American Colonies’ bid for freedom.  He took a ragtag army to victory against far superior and experienced forces.

The second, knowing how slowly civilizations change, was the appearance of what we self-agrandizingly call a more humane civilization about 1500 years to the day before the discovery of its greatest manifestation, America.  This Christian, or if you will, Judeo-Christian civilization, changed the globe forever, from the brutal and still primitive Roman civilization to what we call Western Civilization.

Sure, you’ll admit it’s more humane, but did you know that means less beastly?

Brookhaven Labs has begun a two billion dollar construction on what it calls an RHIC (collider) similar to CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.  It will put the US in the forefront of nuclear research in the area of human and material composition.  I find it easier to call it a cyclotron, which means a circular collider.  It will be 2.7 miles in diameter (CERN’s is 5.4 miles), and have an 8.5 mile circumference.

The famed Higgs boson is one of the particles discovered by CERN, a particle that I had hoped would establish a relationship between the spiritual and the material, since it is so immaterial.  We now know that what it does is give weight to any atoms that possess it.

Basically what the Brookhaven collider will do is hurl tiny electrons at larger nuclei, so scientists can search the debris for clues to what makes up our atoms besides protons, neutrons, quarks and gluons.  See you in a world that has Higgs bosons.

Thou must be true thyself, 
If thou the truth wouldst teach; 
Thy soul must overflow, if thou
Another’s soul would’st reach! 
It needs the overflow of heart
To give the lips full speech.

Think truly, and thy thoughts
Shall the world’s famine feed; 
Speak truly, and each word of thine
Shall be a fruitful seed; 
Live truly, and thy life shall be
A great and noble creed. 

Horatius Bonar

While we love surprises, like for our birthdays, we do need the routine, the everyday.  That’s why when I get the chance, I visit Oyster Bay.  It’s not too far from where I live, and it’s restful to watch the seagulls and the occasional boat motor or sail by.

We are marvelous works of Creation, ready for an instant surprise or a long, drawn out, restful day, like that of the seagulls sunning in the parking lot.  I can turn a restful day into a productive one by writing or prayer.

Yes, the choice is mine, and I have two good alternatives.