I just read about a Muslim woman, born in the UK and lead into radical Islam by her Texan first husband. She made a long mental and physical journey, through Turkey and Syria, and provided for four children, ending up in a form of Christianity. What an Odyssey!

But she had God-given gifts that she was able to put to use. First of all, she was determined that she wasn’t going to put up with the low position in Islam that women have. Second of all, she was beautiful, which attracted a more intellectual American after she took her children and left her jihad-minded first husband. She now lives in Plano, Texas, a modern-minded community. Third, she spoke English and had a reasonable mind to evaluate such things as religion.

I mean to her, the concepts of Christianity were all new. Life opened up. But abandoning the ideas that made her wear a jihab was like being bathed in scalding water.

Space and time are believed to be the same thing, according to one of Einstein’s early theories, but he never lived to show us how. He struggled with it, but among other things, he needed to grasp how quantum theory, the theory of the tiniest of God’s things created after the Big Bang, works.

You’re willing to believe that, right? But you’re doubting the existence of God, right? Well, you are the proof that they both exist, for you encapsulate them both in you. What a marvelous piece of work are you! You exist in space, and to bring you to perfection took time, time of which you have no concept, existing as you do for less than a century.

When spacetime comes to an end, as it certainly must (you and I will no longer have bodies) I’d like to stop a moment and have another chat with you.

I am now reading A Warning, by Anonymous. Of course, I knew Donald Trump had his flaws, egregious ones, but I was hoping that they would turn out OK, like the “flaws” of Jesus Christ.

No such thing, so far. The worst is the retreat from Syria. We turned the volatile Middle East over to the Syrian dictator, to Russia, Turkey and ISIS.

Donald Trump became President by the grace of God (many Catholics voted for him) and he has done his job. Finis. We just have to make sure we don’t vote for somebody who’ll undo all the good he’s done.

In this season of hope, may God continue to bless this country for the sake of the good people who still populate it, and overlook their being spoiled. May he lay the foundation of the 2020 election victory, as he did last time, and may our “mistakes” turn out well as they did for Jesus Christ. Life is full of wonders.

I like to write about successful past students, like former Congressman Steve Israel, but sometimes I mention the other student. There’s one in Sing-Sing (the penitentiary) and they all go to my heart, especially Penelope (not her real name). She has young children, and recently her husband divorced her — she’d been unfaithful. She is now in a mental ward, repeating again and again, “Will no man have me?”

There’s not much I can do at the distance I am from her, but I do believe in the power of prayer. This is one prayer I want answered (and I’ve had many prayers granted — not always the way I wanted). It matters not to me how many rosaries it takes (my favorite form of prayer), but that pretty young woman has to be helped.

She has to find a way to recover and raise those children. God gives us so many chances in this, our Western Civilization. An educated woman like she can get a job, can find a kind husband, can find dozens of people who will help. Sounds too easy? You haven’t seen prayer at work.

I’m eighty-five years old, and I don’t claim I’ve seen it all. I still have an advisor, through religion, but I know better than to say all religions are the same. The advisor comes to me through the Hebrew tradition, ending in Christianity. That religion has influenced the civilization I live in more than all the religions of the world.

The need for an advisor is illustrated by this story from my son, Paul. He and his friends had taken to cutting open some firecrackers and emptying the contents into an unused lipstick cover. Now Paul liked to go big. So one day I met him coming up from the basement with a short piece of plumbing in his hand. “What’s that for?” I asked.

“Oh, we’re using it for firecrackers.”

“Is that right?” I was used to dealing with boys. It turned out he had emptied the contents of about fifty firecrackers into that piece of pipe and sealed both ends, with a piece of string for a fuse. “That’s a pipe bomb,” I told him, taking it safely into my own hands. “I’m going to advise you to do nothing with that but scatter the parts separately in the garbage can.” I will say this for Paul: he did as I advised. He became more helpfully creative later when he found a job as a librarian at NY Tech, and earned a Master’s Degree.