You get 1 and 1/2 billion

On Weekend Edition Saturday (NPR) I heard an amazing statistic. In the portion of the program titled “Size Matters: The Hidden Mathematics of Life”,  Professor Geoffrey West and his colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute are interviewed about their research into the possibility of using mathematical formulas to calculate an animal’s lifespan. Prof. West found out that all animals get roughly 1 1/2 billion heartbeats before they die, including people. The bigger the animal, the slower the heartbeat. The slower the heartbeat, the longer the animal lives. For instance, the great blue whale’s heart beats once every 3 to 4 seconds, or 15 times a minute. A shrew’s heart beats a thousand times a minute. The shrew lives about one year and the whale so much longer. But no matter the amount of time, they all get the same number of heart beats.

You and I are billionaires. Let’s invest and get a return on what has been given to us.

Today’s Quote 8/18/07

Our lives improve only when we take chances – and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Walter Anderson

It’s like a revival meeting!

A revival at the acupuncturist, that is. Going to the acupuncturist this last week has been like going to an old time revival meeting. (Yes, in my youth I went to the big tent revival meetings with sawdust on the ground and the long wooden benches – I can still smell the sawdust and feel it between my toes). Everyone is talking about their healing and the miracle of a new beginning. There is the one man who started the same day I did to get relief from his three pack a day cigarette habit. He keeps talking about not craving a single cig since the first visit. “It’s a miracle!”, he says. This is a “once-I-was-blind-but-now-I-see” phenomenon.

For me the pain first started in my hip and gradually moved down my leg until it got to the bottom of my heel so that I could not walk without a Jacob-limp. Soon I was going to be on crutches. After the first visit to the acupuncturist the pain in the foot went away. After the second visit the pain in my lower thigh and calf went away. Now After the third visit the pain in my hip is diminished. It’s the source of the pain and will probably take more time.

On this last visit I asked him if he was using more needles. He said no. The reason I thought there were more was because now I could feel them. On my first visit I could not.

I am doing what any born-again Christian does. I am evangelizing. I took a handful of the doctor’s cards and hand them out to my limping and ailing friends at the gym and the church, in the highways and byways. “You have to go see the healer,” I say.

Makes me think about conversations at the church – weather, sports, whatever. Nobody in the acupuncturist’s office is talking about such things. It’s only about the healing.