Editorials

MATTER JUST ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE! Or so we might believe, in light of evolving views within the world of physics. It wasn't that long ago we were all taught that matter was a fairly substantial thing.

OVER SEVERAL DECADES OF TEACHING BIBLICAL STUDIES at the college level, I have been continually touched by the Easter story. The gospel narrative is very dramatic, moving from the noisy adulation of Christ Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to his anguish at Gethsemane, from a tortured execution to a quiet, triumphant appearance to his disciples on Easter morning.

LEGEND HAS IT THAT A REGION IN LONG-AGO EUROPE was once terrorized by an evil ogre. This brute of a beast would bully the local villagers—beating them, stealing their treasures, and making their lives utterly miserable.

ACCORDING TO ONE THEORY IN PHYSICS, once upon a time our entire universe was thought to be an incredibly condensed bit of matter. Perhaps as small as a grapefruit! Then it exploded and all the resulting little specks now constitute what we call the universe of matter.

NEW BEGINNINGS HAVE THEIR SPECIAL ATTRACTION. Not only do they anticipate better times, but they provide the opportunity for us to put aside that which we no longer wish to live with.

AS I READ THE PAPERS AND LISTEN TO THE NEWS, there's one word that appears over and over: rebuilding. From the tsunami in Southeast Asia to the London and Bali bombings, the destruction left by recent hurricanes and earthquakes, and the desperate circumstances in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems there are few places in the world today where the cry for rebuilding and renewal isn't an urgent one.

WHEN I WAS IN NEW YORK CITY RECENTLY, I noticed something was missing from my room in the large Midtown hotel where I was staying: There was no Gideon Bible. For over a century the Gideon Society has placed Bibles in hotel rooms in a total of 179 countries around the globe.

THERE'S A BRIEF BUT TELLING SCENE at the end of Ron Howard's film A Beautiful Mind where the central character, John Nash, a man who has been terrorized by delusions, sees the three "characters" who have been his nemeses during a long bout with schizophrenia. They stand to the side as he prepares to leave the ceremony recognizing his work as a Nobel Prize-winning economist.

IT'S HARD TO IGNORE A TREE. Especially one that towers fresh and green in the midst of a barren desert.

TA DA DA DA .