Yes, the rumors are true, I am a geek, a dweeb, a nerd, a nebbish.

I am fascinated by the minute and trivial things that many other people have little or no interest in.

I once obsessed over how many six-ounce packets of Jell-O powder it would take to convert an Olympic sized swimming pool into a trampoline (but I was unable to figure out a way to bring the pool to a boil, and then refrigerate it so the Jell-O would set).

I can tell you the monetary value of a pound of twenty-dollar bills, but don’t ask me how I determined that number, trust me on that.

I used to place wagers on Presidential Primary elections, point spreads and all. I made a ton of money until I went bust on the Bush/Gore general election.

I have written monographs on minor members of the Plantagenet dynasty (which were the inspiration for several characters in the Lord Of The Rings and the Silmarillion).

Don’t even ask me about Schrodinger’s Cat. You wouldn’t like what I have to say about that (although I almost convinced P.E.T.A. to organize a protest on the cats’ behalf).

And then there is the wide world of Science Fiction, although I prefer to call the genre Speculative Fiction. I love a well-written speculative fiction novel. The first four books of the Dune series are probably the apex of that art. Perhaps my favorite speculative fiction series is a 5-part trilogy called The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy by the late Douglass Adams. The two main takeaways, or major life lessons, found in this epic work are DON’T PANIC, and Always Know Where Your Towel Is.

The storyline goes something like this: Once upon a time, not too long ago, the earth was destroyed to make room for an intergalactic bypass. This came as a major surprise, as nobody on this planet never bothered to check out the public notice posted in the Intergalactic planning office. As a result of our collective apathy, the entire human race was wiped out of existence, save for one guy, who was rescued by a neighbor who happened to be an alien, (and a woman who happened to be out of town, on a spaceship that was stolen by the President of the Galaxy), and then begin the adventures that rival any Monty Python sketch.

The common thread that weaves these adventures together is the quest to find “…the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything,” what some folks with lots of letters after their name and algorithms in their heads might call “The Unified Field Theory.” As things turned out, the white mice of our world (who apparently have been training human scientists to feed them by putting free mouse food in mazes) built a humongous computer to determine the answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Several millennia passed before the computer found the answer, which was 42. It was at this point they realized that they were asking the wrong question, so they built another computer.  This computer was the size of a planet. It looked like a planet, it acted like a planet, as a matter of fact, it was a planet, specifically a planet called Earth. Unfortunately, just before the planet earth was about to finally find the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, it was destroyed in order to make way for an Intergalactic Bypass.

Throughout the five-part trilogy (yes, it is a 5-part trilogy, just go with it) the number 42 pops up in many ways, and ever since I read this incredible work several decades ago, 42 continues to show up all over the place.

Last week I stumbled upon anther 42.

When Matthew wrote his biography of Jesus, he begins with His genealogy.

Starting with Abraham, Mathew documents 14 generations from Abraham to David.

Then 14 Generations from David to the Exile.

Another 14 generations from the Exile to Jesus.

Three sets of fourteen.

That would be 42.

We don’t need to be like the white mice building a computer and looking to science to find the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

We don’t need to be like the white mice playing the philosopher’s game of searching for meaning by asking “the right questions” to find the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Nor do we need to be like the white mice building some sort of “Brave New World” to find the answer to Life, the Universe, and everything.  

We already got one right here. You’re sitting on it.

Holy Spirit told us, through Paul, that Creation itself testifies of God (Romans 1:14).

Consider this:

Every time you see a sunset, on the other side of the planet there is a sunrise.

From each and every spot on the planet that majestic sunset (and its corresponding sunrise) looks different.

Every passing moment of that awesome sunset and sunrise looks different.

Every second of every minute of every hour of every day there is a new, unique, beautiful astounding holy artwork of the sunrise/sunset put on display.

Multiply that by the nine planets in our solar system.

Multiply that by each and every star in the galaxy, and factor in all the planets around those stars.

Multiply that by all the galaxies and their stars and their planets.

I’m not sure how big that number is, but it’s huge! It’s so huge that if you found yourself face to face with the total perspective of yourself in relationship to that number, you would be living in a void that would crush your innermost being, requiring endless amounts of high priced therapists, over many lifetimes to simply raise you up to a semi-catatonic state, curbed in a fetal position, pathetically whimpering to yourself as you suck your thumb.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way.

The same kind and loving Father who intentionally counted 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus so geeks like me can find another reason to delight in Him, went out of his way to create a planet, a solar system, a galaxy, a universe so awesomely beautiful that when we allow ourselves to be awed by the magnificence of His creation. we will be drawn to him and all of His goodness. 

All we gotta do is look around to find the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Jesus put it all there in plain sight.

Thanks for letting me take up some of your time.