Three words: Pursue your dreams

After returning to my hotel room late Friday evening of the Lantern reunion at Ohio State two weekends ago (September 11-12), luxuriating in the king-sized bed and channel-surfing the state-of-the-art TV (I haven't had a bedroom TV since my studio apartment in Hell's Kitchen, NYC), I chomped on seaweed-flavored Turtle Chips and Cape Cod salt-and-vinegar kettle potato chips, followed by sour apple gummies.

I debated whether I wanted to go to the planned tour of the newsroom and J-school the next morning to see all that has changed in 40 years.

But it's very seldom anymore that I have ANY feeling of "getting away," in this case even staying at a nice hotel (Fairfield Inn on Olentangy River Road only a couple of miles from campus), so I made the decision to opt out of the tour and instead enjoy the complimentary breakfast before throwing on my swimsuit and spending the rest of the morning swimming and soaking in their super-bubbly hot tub that was truly hot in the best way.

Doing laps in the pool, another thing I hardly ever get to do anymore, my mind unexpectedly but, given all the news coverage from the day before, not surprisingly went back to the morning of September 11 when I got up inside the Michigan Avenue Hilton in downtown Chicago and immediately threw on my swimsuit to get in a swim in their humongous pool on the top floor before showering, doing my hair and putting on dress clothes for work.

I had to be ready by 10 to take the shuttle to McCormick for the trade show I was covering as Associate Editor of Graphic Arts Monthly. Our offices were on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, NYC.

The elevator door opened on the floor of the gym/pool and a man red and sweaty in the face with a white towel around his neck was standing in front of me. He pointed to the elevator's built-in TV monitor and asked me if I had seen what was on the screen. I hadn't paid attention since there was no sound. He said, "A plane just hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center."

He entered the elevator and we both stared at the screen. I told him that I lived in Manhattan and that I had better hurry and get back to my room and call a co-worker at my office to see what they knew.

Sitting in my bathing suit on the edge of my king-sized bed inside the Hilton, a few feet from the TV, I saw everything unfold before me in an absolutely mind-blowing fashion.

The biggest thing I remember from those moments was crying and praying in earnest something close to, "I get it now, God. I'm not going to live for myself anymore; I'm going to do your work."

After leaving the Fairfield Inn around noon, my hair still wet from swimming, I decided to take my own tour of campus. 

I was floored to see that at the corner of High Street and Lane Avenue a multi-story building with a huge Starbucks sign emblazoned across it. In the summer before my senior year I actually lived in a house only doors away from this Starbucks!

A classmate and fellow staffer at the Lantern, Rachelle, invited me to live with her and four other girls, all of whom were Jewish. I found out at the reunion that Rachelle is a very successful lawyer in Los Angeles.

. . . . to be continued tomorrow and in the meantime here is an old post:

Change is good. Count your blessings. Seize the day. Be your best. Never give up. Adventure is calling. Do it now. Enjoy every moment. Dreams come true. Fall in love. Go for it. Just be yourself. Keep it simple. Less is more. Life is good. Life is short. Make it count. Never give up. Never look back. You will succeed. You are loved. Why not now?

You can’t get away from it; there’s an extraordinary way. It’s just fascinating how the Bible uses the number three.

This is the reality of the way the Creator created it; everywhere you look in creation, everywhere you look in the Scripture, the number 3 is just arbitrarily stamped, says Richard Jordan.

Jesus Christ was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Why not five, why not two?

Jonah was three days in the whale’s belly. Why not two days? It wouldn’t have stunk so bad when he got burped out. Why not four days? I mean, why three?!

Israel, they have three patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Levi, of the Levitical priesthood, was the third son of Jacob. The Book of Leviticus is the third book in the Bible.

When Moses was given the law, he came down off the mountain. You remember what happened? You remember how many people died that day? About three thousand.

When the Spirit of God was given on the day of Pentecost, you remember how many people got saved that day? About three thousand. A little symmetry there.

You go all through the Bible and that number three is over and over and over and over again. Abraham takes Isaac and for three days journey to take him up, he thinks he’s going to go sacrifice his son and the boy’s been dead for three days. You say, “Why three?”

There’ s three divisions in a Jewish Bible. When the wise men bring gifts, how many gifts do they bring? That’s why people think there’s three wise men. There might have been 40 of them; you don’t have any idea how many wise men there where.

They brought three gifts. Why did they bring three gifts? Because Jesus Christ wears three crowns, three offices: He’s a prophet, He’s a priest and He’s a king, so they bring gold for the king, they bring frankincense for the priest and they bring myrrh for the prophet.

There are three people in your Bible who entered into ministry when they were 30 years old. Jesus was one. Then King David, when he was anointed king, II Samuel 5. Then Joseph, when he took over Pharoah’s reign in Genesis 41. Three men.

Esther, she fasted three days. Why not five days? Why in the world would you think it’s better to fast three days than two or six? I mean, if three is good, wouldn’t six be better?

All through the Scripture. You say, “Why is that?” Well, three is an imprint. Romans 1:20 indicates that three is imprinted on creation itself.

[20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

You look around in creation and you’ll see the trinity; three stamped all over creation. We have three dimensions. Height, width, length. Time is in three parts: past, present and future.

If you take electromagnetic forces, it’s positive, negative and neutral. If you take pigments, there are three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. In light, coming off the sun, there are three primary colors. That’s red, green and blue. It’s interesting that they’re different.

The earth; it’s the third planet—third rock from the sun. Matter on the earth finds itself in three stages: solid, liquid or a gas. The strongest structural shape is a triangle.

DNA; the language of DNA is made up only of three-letter words.

It’s fascinating, but you do it all of the time just in the colloquial way that you live. “Stop, look, listen!” We say, “Three strikes you’re out!” “He won the Triple Crown!” “Gold, silver, bronze.” He’s “cool, calm and collected.” It’s “of the people, by the people and for the people.” “Lights, camera, action!” You can just go on and on with this stuff.

Three is just stamped all over creation. You say, “Why?” Because the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen. You see His fingerprints on His creation.

Now you have to understand something about the trinity: the Father, the son and the Spirit. Those titles describe the roles that each person of the godhead has chosen to play in relationship to His creation.

There’s a thing in theology called submission, or subordination, in the godhead. There’s an internal relationship between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit where they live together, and they’ve always lived together by the way.

And the way they relate to one another. They have chosen to assign responsibilities to each one of the members of the godhead, so that each one has their specific role. They’re all equally God but each one of them—the way God lives, the way God functions, “God is love.”

You know that verse? We teach the children, “God is good.” To be good means you’re always looking out for the interest of the other. Love is the carrying out of that which is good.

God, in His very nature, lives a life that is always focused on the benefit and the advantage of other people. In the godhead, the Father is always serving the Son, the Son is always serving the Father and the Sprit is always serving the Son. Each one, they live for each other. That’s the godhead.