Here’s a fun fact about me:  I love patterns.  I love to find patterns in the way things move and the way people do things.  I love to find patterns in numbers.  I am always and forever on the search for patterns.  It is perhaps the one constant in my life.  An early example of this is that a best friend’s phone number was 229-0108.  Or, because we didn’t have to dial the first two numbers, it was 90108.  My grandmother’s zip code was 01089 and I could always remember both because the 9 just changed positions.  It was over 30 years ago, neither my best friend nor my grandmother have lived with those numbers for any of those 30 years, but I can still remember the numbers.  If I weren’t a Jesus follower, I would probably be heavily into numerology.  After my love affair with numbers, I discovered that people and the way the interact with other people could be described into patterns.  Those patterns are not as easily observed, nor are they as distinct, nor as rigid.  But still those patterns are there.

In a few days we have an auspicious date on the calendar.  July 7, 2007 or 07.07.07.  Or 7-7-7.  Now the number 7 seems to be something that is good in the Bible … it’s mentioned often in terms of forgiveness and jubilee.  I wonder if good things might happen on that day.  On the other hand, last year we had, June 6, 2006 or 06.06.06.  Or 6-6-6 which is sometimes associated with bad things in the Bible and nothing bad happened on that day.  So, I’m probably overreaching.  But it would be fun to have a day in which wonderful things happened.  A day of jubilee.  It is, however, a random day, assigned a number by a monk over a thousand years ago.  So, really, while it means something to us, it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of life, the universe and everything.