Remarkable, Descartes ... and a Bill

Spirituality Column #153
October 13, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Remarkable, Descartes … and a Bill
By Bob Walters

Remarkable
Mary Jane English was a remarkable woman.

The longtime principal at Heritage Christian Elementary School retired in 2004 ending 37 years of service building Indiana’s largest private elementary school. Mrs. English died Sept. 16, 2009, after battling colon cancer for many months.

Not surprisingly, her memorial service Oct. 3 at East 91st Street Christian Church was also remarkable, displaying love, grace, public affection, music and God’s Word celebrating a life dedicated to the Lord, to her family, and to her profession.

The hundreds in attendance at the service included several dozen of the teachers Mrs. English hired over nearly four decades. Those teachers influenced thousands of young students throughout the north and northeast Indianapolis Metro area. See HeritageChristian.net for a wonderful tribute.

As her son Bill noted at the service, “She never once doubted she was doing what God wanted her to do … she never doubted her destination, and was fully confident she had an inheritance that would never perish, spoil, or fade. … At the end she had a sense of accomplishment, a sense of finish and was ready to go on and be with God. … She showed us all the right way to live, and the right way to die.”

Enter thou into the joy of the Lord, Mrs. English.

Descartes
Thankfully, alert reader Dr. T.F. Foust of Carmel caught a mistake I made a couple weeks ago. Descartes’ famous philosophical phrase, “I think, therefore I am,” in Latin is “Cogito ergo sum.” I bone-headedly wrote “Cognito ergo sum” in the Sept. 22 column about Pascal and Indy’s recent secular convention.

Kudos to Dr. Foust for his keen recognition. I looked it up. “Cogito” means “I think.” “Cognito” isn’t anything, just a misspelling; what my great aunt Marian would call “an illiterate mistake.” FYI, “cognoscere” means “to learn, to know.” Ergo, now I think I know my error, and have since been cogitating on my lack of cognition. Mea culpa.

And a Bill
Sept. 29 I wrote that Thomas Jefferson had “almost nothing to do” with the writing of the U.S. Constitution. That’s mostly right. He was in France while the document he dreaded took shape, yet was in constant correspondence with his best friend James Madison, the father of the Constitution. Upon his return Jefferson still wasn’t crazy about the charter, and championed the addition of the Bill of Rights.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) is thankful Christ has forgiven our sins, and prays readers will forgive an occasional mistake.