Now we all just know seven is a lucky number (although it seems in China, the number is anything but). Something to do with it being the most common total you can get with a pair of dice or any other of dozens of quite plausible though likely not the real deal answers. Myself, I’m a 13 guy.. turned 13 on Friday the 13th. But seven .. hmmm.. doesn’t do much for me. But hey, everyone’s mileage can vary, eh?

So.. what of this thing called the Seven Year Itch … if seven is so lucky, how did it get mixed up with a violation of the bonds of marriage? Turns out, the origin is not about something that happens “after” seven years at, but rather an itchy skin condition that “lasted seven years”. Since the mid 1800s, at least in the US, the treatment of said condition is trivial, but the moniker lives on … funny things we do with words!

Well, except one.

Last week, I had the enormous joy of presenting the core bible lesson amongst a wonderful array of activities to 80 kids and a plethora of middle and high school age volunteers are our annual Vacation Bible School.  During the final day’s lesson on Pentecost, it occurred to me that there was question that I’d wondered about very often, but never really knew the answer.

Monday through Thursday we spent in the Gospels, calling this little band of followers “disciples”. Come Friday, suddenly we’re called these same guys “apostles”. So what gives.. are they disciples or apostles. The question occurred to be and I had to admit to myself that I didn’t actually know this very simple and fundamental thing.

One of my teen helpers can to the rescue and of course now that I had something of an answer, I had to dig a little. Turns out, the answer is as simple as the definitions of the words themselves.

So, for the three or four folks out there who don’t already know, heres the deal. Disciple is a word for “student”, while Apostle translates roughly to “one who is sent”.  Duh .. sometimes the things I don’t know really make me wonder!!  For those who number themselves among the body of Christianity, disciple before the Ascension, apostle after.  Couldn’t be simpler.  And I don’t even think I had to kick something out of my brain to make room for that!!

Every once in a while you find something out that makes you feel really stupid and makes you wonder how many stupid things have rolled off your tongue to make a point that was way off base.

“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”

We’ve all seen it.  Some may even have remembered that somewhere along the way in driver’s ed, they probably told us about it. Well, not when I went through. I’m certain of it.  And that ‘48 Farmall tractor once which I learned to drive didn’t have any rear view mirrors anyway!

I always wondered why the passenger side got stuck with with I presumed had to be a low budget mirror. Would it have killed them to pony up for a real one?  Turns out, there’s actually a really good reason for the disparity in mirrors (at least on vehicles in the US…).  The driver’s side mirror is nearly flat, sometimes perhaps very slightly concave, making the image seen be very close in distance to the actual distance were one to face the other direction (full body turns not generally a good idea for the driver though.. try this with the engine off!).

On the other side, were automakers to put an equivalent mirror there, we wouldn’t be able to see much of anything. Bad angle, long distance.  So instead, so that we at least distinguish shapes, we have a convex mirror on the opposite side.  Upside, we can see something. Downside, distance is a little distorted. Don’t believe it? Look into the back of a spoon .. sure enough, you look much farther away than you are.

I stand corrected and apologize for every time I’ve uttered some ridiculous criticism of automobile designers.  You guys and gals certainly got this one right and we ought thank you for it!