The Circle Of Life

​I was once a math major. Then I took Calculus III and I was no longer a math major. Still, I never lost my fascination for math. I always understood its importance. I frequently tell my boys, I don't care if you skip every class, just don't skip math class. (Thankfully, they have plenty of other influences in their life telling them don't listen to your dad....🤷‍♂️).

If you don't know it already - if you have any math friends in your life, you soon will know it. Today is Pi Day. The day that recognizes the never ending, never repeating ratio of every circle's circumference to its diameter. And since it's never-ending, someone has to decide where it stops.

Most people stop it at 3.14 (thus the 3/14 celebration). Thanks to computers, we actually know the first 6 billion digits of that ratio, but that makes it a lot harder to figure out which day to celebrate it. So we clip a few billion digits from the number.

This whole pi thing - it's frustrated some of the smartest scientists and mathematicians for centuries. How can a number not be solvable? How can it just go on and on - infinity? Many have suggested this is proof of God - there really is such a thing as eternity. Others have been obsessed with solving pi for the very same reason - to dispute this notion of infinity.

But still - here we are - celebrating the number that still goes on and on and on.

I do wonder this morning if God might have his hand in this whole pi thing. Jesus often spoke to us through parables. He was a story-teller that often refused to tell us how the story ended so we'd think about the endings ourselves.

Maybe God's thing is math. He gives us math problems that never end so we'll go about chasing the 6 billion digits on our own.

I find it interesting that pi is connected to the circle. Circles are often used as a symbol of life. There's a song from the movie Lion King - it's actually called the circle of life. Part of it goes like this:

***
In the circle of life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
'Til we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
***

You and I, we are the great and the small. We are those who fall and those who soar - the sailors and the scarred. Yet, there is no doubt - we ARE all connected. We are a circle.

No matter how big this world gets, no matter how big our circle becomes, I think there is one thing that is supposed to remain the same. At the center of our circle is love - a love so big and so unsolvable and so connecting us to eternity that no matter how big our circle gets - our circle just isn't supposed to break. It's supposed to go on. Infinity.

It's not supposed to break for the great, or the small. For the sailors or for the scarred.

I guess that's my pi day gift wish. That we all take a hand. That we all join the circle. That we embrace the hands of the sailors and the scarred, and we ride this big circle out together, for 6 billion digits and beyond.

Until maybe one day God says, with a big circular smile, ah - you finally solved it. I'm so glad you're here.

And wouldn't it be appropriate then, that we all sit around a big round table and celebrate with some pie. I like mine apple. With lots of ice cream.

Happy Pi Day. Find your circle. And embrace what keeps your circle growing without end ❤️.