Random Thought #26

My thought tonight comes from a number of unlikely sources:

Richard Feynman
Martin Lowrie Hofford
Hugh Nibley
My Family

1st - Richard Feyman. If you don't know Richard Feyman was a world-renowned Nobel Prize winning physicist. I've been engrossed in his lectures as of late and one particular piece of instruction caught my attention as he was talking about gravity. He was talking about how everything attracted everything else and got to talking about the tides and how the moon's pull on the earth affected the tides. Without going into too much details, basically we know that there are 2 tides a day, morning and night. I'm not sure which one is high and which is low but basically when the moon is closer to the earth, there is a stronger pull (guessing high tide is at night) and the other side of the earth is further away and therefore has a weaker pull (guessing low tide in the morning).

Cool website if you're interested in Feyman's lectures - http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/

2nd - Hugh Nibley. As most of you know, I've been doing some heavy Nibley reading. Again, without going into much detail, he basically states that the ancients (especially the Egyptians) always looked to the cosmos to understand their place in the world. They were especially fascinated with the problem of how does one make it from this world into eternity (i.e. Resurrection). That's why they were so nutty about funerary stuff. Anyway, there is a basic drama (and this is basically the point that Facisimile 2 in the Book of Abraham is pointing out) that describes the Resurrection process. Its called the Re/Osiris drama. Osiris represents the deceased and Re (his father) represents the sun (more specifically the morning version of the sun). They think that the setting of the sun represents the journey into the underworld (dying) and the rising of the sun represented bringing the dead out of the underworld and back into mortality (albeit immortal).

Tons of Nibley Literature - http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/authors/?authorID=2

3rd - Martin Lowrie Hofford. This fine gentleman was a very intelligent evangelist and was the author of the text of one of our hymns, #165, Abide with Me; Tis Eventide. I couldn't find much of a history on this guy but the basics are here for you to know.

4th - My Family. How is this all related you ask? Well, I was giving my girls their bath, but figured I'd let them play around a bit first in the tub. After they had played around a bit, I started singing various songs quite loudly and changing a few words in hopes that my lovely wife would come up from whatever she was doing and help me with the bathing process. I sang stuff like "The girls have need of willing parents who wear the worker's seal, come help me give the girls a bath, put your shoulder to the wheel". Well, one of the songs I sang was Abide with Me; Tis Eventide. It went something like this. "Abide with Me; my lovely wife, the girls are almost done. I need some help to get them clean, oh please, please darling come".

Anyways, as I sang that song, I thought about that song and the actual words and everything just clicked. I had no idea what eventide was. You know how we just sing the songs and don't think much about the words, well since I have been doing this Nibley and Feyman research, I realized that even tide meant evening tide. Its almost night time and is watching the evening tide, and is begging the Lord for his companionship, perhaps even the Holy Ghost to remain with him. Quite beautiful really.

The funniest part is that this came to me as my girls were making some serious tides in the bathtub at night time. How ironic is that!!