Category Archives: midlife crisis

38-50-17 : No Mid Life Crisis

As I had my 38th birthday last week, the combination represents both a “gift” of MS and why I hate it.

If 38 years is 50% of my life, then I will live with MS for 46 years.  Since I have had MS for 8 years, that would mean I am 17% way through my story with this disease.  I can’t lie.  The thought of 83 percent of the progression being still in front me of me is daunting and intimidating as hell.

Still, I guess some men my age have a midlife crisis.  I find I am OK with the thought I might be half way through this life.  Don’t take this to mean I want now to be more than half way through life.  I’m not done living.  It’s just on tired days like these, I don’t feel threatened by the prospect of being in the second half of my life. 

Maybe I should play these numbers in the lottery this week.

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On the funny kids’ theology front, this weekend sitting at our table eating lunch, my son asked me what language God speaks.  I had to check myself from giving my sarcastic “English of course.”  Instead I answered as honestly as I could, “I suspect God speaks two languages, Love expressed in actions and math.”

He said “Math?  Why math?  Who speaks in math?”  I’m still surprised how readily both O and A accepted the “love” answer.

“Think about all the things we explain with math.  We can explain how fast an object will fall from our hands.  We explain how many days there are in a year or number of seconds in a month.  We can measure all of the world around us, and we explain it all with numbers.”

My daughter then chimed in, “I thought God speaks in miracles.”

“Maybe he does.  Still, think how a man brought 1,000 years into the future would react to a trip inside our house.  Imagine his amazement when I flipped a light switch and the half globe on our ceiling lit up the room.  Can you imagine his reaction to a talking box with picture of people moving on its surface?  Might he think we can do great magic?  Man has used the terms ‘magic’ and ‘miracle’ for thousands of years to explain what we don’t know.  Maybe God does miracles, but none of this says how he accomplishes them.  So I stick with math as the basis of science as the most probable answer to his preferred mode of communication. However, this is all a guess on my part.”

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