The Law of (Endless) Probability

In a blog I wrote that appeared on 12-17-09, I told the true story of a little boy who once rang my doorbell. He had a ball and mitt. On my answering the doorbell he asked, "Can you come out and play?" I answered, "Absolutely!" Yesterday, I answered the doorbell to a little boy about the size and age of the first one who, holding a smaller boy by one hand and a soccer ball in the other, asked me, "Can you come out and play?"

What are the odds for such a thing as this happening twice? They are astronomical at best. Yet in the world of Mathematics there is something called the Law of Probability. By virtue of this law one can predict the odds of such and such happening. One uses ratios, accumulated data, time factors, then poses a hypothesis as to an event occurring or reoccurring. I am confident in utilizing the Law of Probability in making the following predictions:

God will be good
A mother will be cured of breast cancer
An alcoholic will find new and sober life
An errant child will rediscover his or her family
A husband/wife will forgive his/her husband/wife
Someone will find laughter after a season of grief
The sun will shine
God will be good

O, and lest I forget, sometime another little boy will come and ask me if I can come out and play. I count on it. It's the Law of Probability.

AS THE WORLD TURNS

I don't know if the daily soap opera "As The World Turns" is still running on television.  My mother heard (on radio) then watched (on television) that program while she did the ironing and rocked her babies.  But there is a real life world that turns and it turns every day, every hour of the day and every minute of every hour of every day.  I can see this world turn from my study window, from my living room windows, from long walks through the community, from the newspaper and radio and television, from hospital visits and conversations with friends and strangers.  As the world turns on its daily appointed rounds it exposes to us the violence, the sorrows, the greeds, failures and grinding pains of daily life.  The daily turning of the world in which we live, the ambitions, the emptiness which pervades so many lives, is shown to us as clearly as if we were watching it in 3-D.

But 3-D of course is an illusion, it enables us to see what isn't there.  So, I say, off with the 3-D glasses!  Only then can we see the beauty of the trees along those walks, parents loving their children, people doing impossible things and overcoming improbable odds.  In looking at life as it turns we know the blind "see," the deaf "hear" and the beauty of things that so boggles our minds we want to break out in some Te Deum of praise.   Just now the world is turning and so can we.  So, excuse me now, I've got to go sing a duet with Luciano Pavarotti from the DVD "Rigoletto."  He needs me to sing the bass part.  Besides that, before the world turns too far today, I'll go say "Good Morning" to the priest across the way who lives with an oxygen tank. So many blessings, so little time to be blessed, how fast the world turns.