Saints, Poets, and Black Holes

Ed (with assistance from me) gave me three devotionals for Christmas. They all looked so much fun that I couldn't choose. Sacred Spaces is pretty straightforward (Bible passage with questions to think about), but the other two are different. The Christian Almanac has a two page spread for every day, with one page about a person who was important in Christianity, and the facing page with various interesting events that occurred on this day over the years (such as, on January 5, 1825, Alexander Dumas "embarked on his career as a romantic at the age of twenty-three by fighting a duel in which his trousers fell down."). Today, I learned from the Almanac about John Donne (it was really Wednesday's entry, but I got behind). Did you know that he was quite the dandy and adventurer before he married his boss's daughter (and got fired for it, because his boss didn't approve) and was inspired by his devout wife to an increasing seriousness in his thinking about God? Or that his poor wife died at thirty-three of exhaustion a week after giving birth to her twelfth child? Now I want to go read some of his poems again, and maybe look for some sermons. The most interesting reading this morning, though, came from my third devotional, The Intellectual Devotional.

Aside from its name, which is just embarrassing, The Intellectual Devotional is a wonderful little book. It covers seven different topics: history, literature, art, science, music, philosophy, and religion, each week. Today was black holes. I'm sure that at one time, briefly, I knew a little about black holes, but this morning, over coffee, the concept of a singularity, a point of infinite density (what is infinite density?), that sucks in everything, including light, that gets near it just seemed infinitely cool! "(Black holes) seem to defy the law of quantum mechanics that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. The light sucked into the center of a black hole seems to be destroyed, as it is crushed into an infinitely small space. But if the light is somehow conserved, then can it escape someday? Is it possible for a black hole to reverse itself?" Doesn't that just boggle your mind? Ed, however, is never boggled. I tried to explain black holes to him, and he said, "Oh, like a big garbage disposal, right?" Well... sort of,maybe... but not really very much! But this quickly led to our latest great invention (none of which ever go beyond the inspiration stage) -- the black hole garbage disposal. We no longer have a garbage service, and we have noticed that our trash and garbage cans fill with depressing rapidity. Frequent trips to the dump, while always an opportunity to meet new friends, are kind of a pain. Wouldn't it be great if you never had to go to the dump again, in fact, never had to empty your garbage can again? If we could arrange for a very small black hole to reside in our kitchen garbage pail, all our trash would be compacted into an infinitely small space. Even tuna odors and fruit flies would just be gone! Even better, since the black hole has suction power, everything that comes near it would be sucked in, which would mean that the carrot peelings and tissues which are tossed carelessly in the general direction of the garbage can would actually go into the can, instead of landing on the floor to be picked up, eventually, by me. Of course, I can see some drawbacks, such as the fact that utensils, which are often tossed in to the trash accidentally, could no longer be retrieved, and that small children who disregarded their parents' warning not to go near the garbage can might be sucked in. Aside from working out the details, though, and finding a source for very small black holes, isn't this a neat idea? Well, it sounded pretty good to me until I'd finished my second cup of coffee (which says a lot about how my brain functions in the morning and why we don't start school at the crack of dawn!).