Numbers

Many of you know that I have always been fascinated with numbers. My mind just works that way. While I’m driving along or just waiting at a traffic light, I will look at a Delaware license plate on another car or truck and add up the digits in my head. Those meaningless additions just happen. I don’t know why. They just do.

There are a lot of numbers, though, that are very important to me, some long lasting, some just in the moment. The number 727 is easily at the top as it is the date of Sue’s and my wedding anniversary (7/27). It also turns out to be the exact number of days between Sue’s birth date and mine. When I told her that fact a few weeks before we were married, she asked, with a questioning look on her face, “Who would ever take time to figure that out?” I learned later the real impetus for her question was her concern over what she was about to get into by marrying a person with such unusual thought processes.

This week, after Tuesday night’s Phillies win, and with seventeen games left to play on their schedule, the number 10 is important to me as that is the Magic Number for the team to clinch the National League East division title. That number is right beside the number 17, the Magic Number for the Phillies to have the best record in all of major league baseball at the end of the regular season. So, from now until the beginning of October, I will chart on a spreadsheet the wins and losses of the Phillies, and each of the competitive teams closest in the standings, to check the Phillies progress towards reducing those Magic Numbers down to zero. In this case, I do know why. They are MY team.

Another number that is very important to me is 270, the number of Electoral College votes needed to determine the outcome of the coming presidential election. November 5 is a critical inflection point in the trajectory of our nation. So much is at stake and we each have an important role to play. Please be sure to vote!

These varied examples lead me to a number that I have remembered for a long time. When I was around 8 or 9, the number 129 was stuck in my head. That was due to the fact in the black hymnal, the Lutheran Common Service Book, copyright 1919, that we used during Sunday School for the mini-worship service at the end of the hour, 129 was the hymn number of “Beautiful Savior.” It was actually spelled “Beautiful Saviour” in that hymnal. When my Sunday School teacher would ask which hymn we should sing to close, I would always volunteer that hymn number. I had the tune and a fair portion of the lyrics memorized. The simple melody and the meaningful verses just captivated me at the time. In many ways, they both still do. Here are the first two verses:

Beautiful Savior, King of creation,

Son of God and Son of Man!

Truly I’d love thee, truly I’d serve thee,

Light of my soul, my joy, my crown.

Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands,

Robed in flow’rs of blooming spring;

Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,

He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

The images these words create for me are uplifting and inspiring. Do you have a favorite hymn? Do you remember its number?

Bob Linderman