“To live is to be slowly born.”


Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sunflower Seeds

Celebrating Everyday Spirituality

Divisors, Dividends, and Quotients

27/3=9   or    27/3 could = 8 remainder 3

I hated third-grade math, especially division. My teacher insisted that 3 into 27 is 9—always, immutable, indisputable. But what if I have two friends with whom I want to share 27 pieces of candy? We wouldn’t eat them all at once.  We could each eat 8 and have 3 left over. Thus 3 into 27 is 8 remainder 3. Isn’t that logical? And doesn’t that leave me with 3 extra pieces of candy I could hoard for myself when my friends leave?

Why divide the human race
unless the distribution is equal
and the remainder is abundance…

I still have antipathy against division. It’s the thing I most hate about our country, our Church, and any other group. Division seems so abnormal when we’re all part of the same human race. We have so many divisors:  discrimination, racism, political views, religious backgrounds. And the dividends are so monstrously important:  peace, clean environment, acceptance, and much more! What will be our quotient? Whatever the quotient is I pray that there is always an equal distribution between rich and poor, the gifted and less talented, the healthy and disabled, those living in the West and those living in the East, Democrat and Republican, believer and atheist. And may the world’s resources be an abundant remainder.

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