We all know we need energy to live. In these days, we gain more and more appreciation about where energy comes from, how we use energy and the impact our energy use has on the earth – the place where we live. Basically, much of our energy comes from the sun, from the plants that are able to take the sun’s energy and “grow with it”. Those plants give us food and dead plants give us fuel (oil, gas, peat bogs, wood, ethanol, etc.). Of, yes, the sun gives us solar energy and, in its way, wind energy. To say nothing of the energy packed into each atom. The discussion of energy can get scientific and, of course, political. 

We will be messing with our watches (and our body clocks) again. March is here and it is already time to ‘spring ahead’ to Daylight Savings Time and take an hour out of our lives. Yes, even the busiest of us will be reduced to 23/7 for one day (and night!).

I am not one to argue with the experts who urge these twice-a-year changes (yes, we will get our hour back next November). But, I do not look forward to the start of DST (as it is affectionately known). It is not just about the hour that I will miss, it is about the new darkness that takes over my early mornings. I am a morning person. I get up and go to the gym at 5:30 each day. It the last few weeks, I have been invigorated, not just by the workout, but by the light that greets me when I leave the gym. The light, that alas, will be taken away and given to the people of the night (or evening). Yes, I admit, it will be nice to have light after dinner, but I do miss that light of the new day arriving for my exercise exodus. It has been so slowly creeping back since late December and now, it will be arbitrarily taken and given away.

The good news is that the time for the early light is still creeping down and just about Tax Day, the sun will be rising to greet me leaving the gym.

But the even better news – the real Good News – is that God has established an eternal Delight Savings Time. After Easter, each day is brighter and more filled with hope and life and promise, because Jesus lived in time, died in time and now lives forever. The light of Christ shines not just in the daylight, but in the darkest of nights. We get to walk into each new day with the light of Easter.

Yes, the light of the resurrected Christ displaces the darkness and we get to see (and experience) life through God’s brilliance. God promises to give us hours and hours and hours of divine delight – DST begins now, toDay!

It is also for ‘church’ and ‘college of cardinals’ and ‘Catholic’ and ‘conclave’ as in papal conclave. Yes, the Catholic Church has a choice to make. In a few weeks, the cardinals will gather in a papal conclave to choose a Pope. After celebrating a mass together, they will go to the Sistine Chapel singing, “Come, Creator Spirit” (Veni Creator Spiritus). They will all shout out, “Extra omnes” – ‘everybody out!”, and the doors will we closed and the Chapel will be sealed. 

In January of this year, a famous “block” will be 55 – the LEGO^® block. In January, 1958, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed the patent for the basic block design that is still at the heart of LEGO^® construction.