Osler's Razor

Like a lot of other people in my vocation, this is a difficult season.  Graduation is a good-bye; it is bittersweet to see students go on, even if they are going on to great things.

For teachers, not all moments are equal, not every month is the same.  There is a strong rhythm to the year, like a roller-coater that dips and soars the same way every ride.  That is one thing I love about it, of course-- that there is that strong sense of time passing in a discernible way.  That's the way it is supposed to be, right?

Too often we only read the start of Ecclesiastes 3, and don't get to the payoff in verse 12:


² A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
³ A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
⁷ A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
⁹ What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
¹⁰ I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
¹¹ He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
¹² I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.