204/365 Two Hundred and Four

204 is one of those numbers I like. 17 x 3 x 2 x 2. It was the number of my first classroom and its anagram, 420, was my first dorm room. 51 x 4, my parents were both born in 1951 and had 4 children. Yes, these are the things that keep me from going to sleep at night. It's a number that shows up here and there all over the place and makes me wonder if I'm reading too much into the universe or if things maybe aren't as random as some folks would have us believe.

I read a quote at some point, I don't know if it's true or not because I can't find the reference anymore, but the gist was that astronomers are the scientists least likely to believe in God. Mathematicians are the most likely. I mentioned this to Fr. Miguel at one point and he knew immediately. "Of course. Astronomers look up into their telescopes and see the vastness and the nothingness, and mathematicians look at numbers and realize that there is a pattern in everything."

It was either Hooke or Leeuwenhoek who looked into the microscope--I think it was Hooke, now that I think again--and was shocked that man-made objects, like the edge of a knife blade, got more more chaotic the closer you looked at them, but natural objects like cork or plant fibers got more and more orderly the closer you looked.

I don't know what I believe about God. Most of the time I try not to examine too closely. But these two anecdotes (and things like prime numbers) help my faith. There is an order to the universe. The universe doesn't care one way or another what I believe--it simply is. But I have a hunch it wasn't just chance.