According to Quantum mechanics, observing a system changes it. Now scientists are worried that by observing “dark energy,” we may have shortened the lifespan of the universe.

Please read that linked article. And contemplate this sentence:

Some mathematical theories suggest that, in the very beginning, there was a void that possessed energy but was devoid of substance. Then the void changed, converting energy into the hot matter of the big bang.

Sound familiar? But what is most striking in this article is how contemporary science is no longer working with conventional logical categories, how it has become as mystical and as unbounded as any theology. It is also quite culture-bound: Postmodernists do believe “we create our own reality,” so why should we not be able to deconstruct reality through our perception? This may also herald the rise of a new worldview, with affinities to Hinduism, a new monism of mind and matter. But these scientists think intelligent design is beyond the pale.

Kansas lost to Missouri on Saturday, marring their undefeated season and shot at the national title. But still, that the Kansas Jayhawks came out of nowhere–being completely unranked at the beginning of the season–to having had a legitimate shot at the national championship is a testimony to coach Mark Mangino.

The massively obese coach is a football genius, just as the massively obese Nero Wolfe is a detection genius. Mangino has specialized in raising teams from the dead. He helped turn even Kansas State into a good football team while he was on the coaching staff. Then he served as the Offensive Coordinator for the Oklahoma Sooners. Back in the 1990s, the Sooners, gutted by NCAA program and recruitment penalties, were mired in mediocrity. They went through several hapless coaches before bringing on today’s Bob Stoops. He, in turn, brought in Mangino, and in 2000, the Sooners–pretty much unheralded until they crushed a powerful Texas team–won the national championship.

Now Mangino is the head coach at the University of Kansas, and he again worked his magic. (Nebraska should be taking up collections from school children to lure him there.) You have to remember that teams like Kansas do not have the benefit of all of those blue-ribbon recruits that the powerhouses do.

“He is doing what Bill Snyder did,” said [Mark] Stallard, who wrote “Tales From the Jayhawks Gridiron.” “Take three-star players and coach them into four- or five-star players that Texas A&M or Texas overlooked.”

COACH them into five-star players! Taking someone of modest ability and TEACHING him to be great! That is the sign of a first-rate coach, a vocation that, we sometimes forget, is a subset of the TEACHER.

Frank Sonnek, in the discussion still raging on the post “YHWH, El, and the Golden Calf,” cites this sermon by Rev. William Cwirla, one of our synod’s great preachers. It’s about how Christ was forsaken on the Cross. It deserves to be printed as an evangelistic tract. The sermon, given at the Higher Things youth gathering, defies paraphrase or even selective quotation. Read it here.