The surprise of existence.  This morning, my wife got a text:  her older brother was in the hospital.  Something to do with his heart (he had a quadruple bypass about five years ago).  When she tried calling for more information, she couldn't get through.  We waited.
     About a half hour later, we heard from his wife.  He had been experiencing arrhythmia  for several hours.  Later in the day, they called 9-11, who bundled him into an ambulance and rushed him away.
     Though John seems to be fine now, we still don't what caused the arrhythmia, nor do we know what we can do to prevent it from reoccurring.  We are left with a great deal of openhandedness.
     As I chatted with a Jewish rabbi friend yesterday, we came to agree that life, however one defines it, is indeed unpredictable and tenuous.  We can therefore deal with life as the fleetingness it is, an accidental eruption in an impersonal universe, or we can deal with life as fleetingness, a fleetingness nonetheless rooted in intention and purpose.
     We were both thankful for the fact of God.