The Slide Rule
Pastor’s Column
Easter Sunday 2012
When I was young I fell in love with astronomy and read every book I could get my hands on; later, I wanted to be a doctor. Well, both of these “scientific” professions would have been great, except for one problem: I was failing chemistry. I have to admit that I was a straight A student, and here I was getting a D minus, and this was a grade of compassion. It didn’t help that the chemistry teacher was a sourpuss and a poor communicator!
What was the real problem? I could not figure out how to use a slide rule (this occurred a couple of years before calculators were permitted). I know this sounds like the dark ages to some of you and, yes, this was a time when a pocket calculator was advanced technology! I am convinced that if I had had access to a calculator, I would be a physician today. Instead, here I was, failing chemistry in high school, the ruins of my future career at hand, and I remember looking out the window and the Lord said to me, “Don’t worry about this. I want you to be a priest.” And that was that. Two years later slide rules were in the Smithsonian, but the priesthood remains. That was the moment of death and resurrection.
Are you in the midst of a disaster in your life at this time? Don’t you know that resurrection always follows a period of dying? It is the way of all things. It is God’s way. He will work this disaster you are experiencing into good in your life, just like he did with Jesus.
Sometimes we need a disaster to wake us up and get us where we need to be. Sometimes something needs to die before we can experience the resurrection from the dead!! Is something or someone dying in your life? Are you experiencing a disaster? Do you have a “slide rule” that is killing you? As they say, the back of one door is the front of another!
I really do believe many of you are in that chemistry class of life right now. Many of you loved this subject and excelled, but God is often closest to us in the disasters, trials and sufferings of life. Have you given up hope? Are you afraid of the future? We, in faith, can look at the resurrection of Jesus and begin to see the physics of the future and the truly exciting world that God is calling you to.
Jesus is calling each of us today from the future. You are an eternal being. Jesus waits for you to have faith in him and his church. He wants us to understand that what happened to him in the resurrection of the dead will also happen to you who believe in him; the physical laws of his glorified body you will also share; the sufferings of the present will lead to a resurrection, and your trials will have meaning in the next life.
And if you are having trouble with some “slide rule” in your life at the present time, cheer up. After death, comes resurrection. After night, comes day. Allow God to speak through the “slide-rule” moments of your life and watch what happens.
Father Gary