I have often wanted to ask the Creator why two of my three wonderful sons were afflicted with bipolar disorder, and I think he has made that unnecessary.  Besides granting them normal childhoods, I was able, with His help, able to give each one a college education.  They achieved on their own: the oldest was able to earn a scholarship and to file about seven U.S. patents in his name while working for Wyeth-Ayerst Labs as a research chemist, and the second one was able to work and pay for a Master’s Degree at NY Tech. With that he become an adjunct English professor at Paterson University in New Jersey.

That is more than enough to make any father proud.  I thank God quietly for having given me such sons, even handicapped sons, but I still don’t understand His ways completely.  They both died by their own hands, as is normal for people with their affliction.

My wife recently bought my granddaughter a book full of short stories and poetry, and it got my utmost approval.  I remembered when I was in elementary school, just about when my father moved his offices (Certina Watches) from Fifth Ave. to the Empire State Building.  He had a business associate named Mr. Wieselberg, and that man, each year gave me a Christmas present of one or two classical books: Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn,  Men of Iron, and the list goes on.  I read them all, and it was a good basis for the boy who became an English teacher, or just for a boy who became a man.

Everybody loves a storyteller, and the best storyteller in my book is Jesus Christ, who not only told stories but gave us words to live by.  I not only remember those stories, but regrettably I forget them, too.  If they are words to live by, you have to recall them at opportune moments.

And so I hope my granddaughter gets words to live by.  A classical education begins at home, and an education like that is in great demand these days.

Forgive my preoccupation with YA writing, science and religion.  You see, I was once a teacher, a candidate for a physics major, and a candidate (novice) for the missionary priesthood (work in New Guinea).  I can’t lose my past, as I can’t lose you if I knew you, and that’s how the present plays out.

We work our lives out with all we meet, and that is ruled by Providence (fate).  I leave the unknown to the Lord, as I advise you to do, and even as I would have advised Einstein to do, when he couldn’t come up with a universal theory (theory of everything).

And so I ask you to put up with me, for that indeed is God’s will for you.  He makes no apologies for his actions, for who could improve on the ways of the Lord?

A fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the energy that had blown the universe’s boundaries light years apart, began to entropy into small particles that formed the nebulae (clouds) that would eventually form the stars that supplied your body with atoms and molecules.  End of physics lesson number XXVII.

The transformation of energy into matter is like the transformation of the spiritual into the material.  It is a marvel that doesn’t impress everybody.  (What does it take to impress these homo sapiens?  Will they bring honor or shame to their Creator?)  Be like your forefathers who knew what caused awe.  They wrote about it.

You don’t believe?  That makes you a wonder, too.  I don’t want to be that kind of wonder.

“Lord, show me the way to repay you for what you have done for me.”  That was my prayer a short time ago.  What?  How could I ever repay the Giver for life, for good, competent parents, for being born into Western Civilization?  Who was I kidding?

I decided it was better to fulfill my duties to my wife, my son and his family, my friends, the underprivileged, than to go seeking some grandiose quest that I could never fulfill.  Maybe I should increase my income so I could give to worthwhile charities, or volunteer my services to a meal donor or the St. Vincent de Paul Society or the Salvation Army.  The opportunities for doing good are innumerable.

There are some people who just try to be good at what they’re doing, their job, their position in life – as Mother Therese said, to do it with love.  That’s an accomplishment in itself.