1,110 miles per minute: The Speed At Which We Travel
This post from June 12, 2006, explains where the title of this Blog came from and what the numbers 1,110 mean:
I’ve added something to the header of my blog: the number 1,110. This is quite literally the speed the earth travels (1,110 miles per minute, or 18.5 miles per second) as it orbits the sun. You could say it is the speed at which we travel.
The reality of this was brought home to me last year when I listened to a sermon about the J-curve phenomenon, and reclaiming the centrality of Jesus in everyday life (recorded 3/28/2004). Some of the research behind the sermon was based on the work of physician and theo-futurist, Richard A Swenson in his book Margin. It has been around for a few years, but I highly recommend this work. The statistics alone will freak you out.
In the sermon, entitled “The Widening Gyre,” the speaker quotes part of a poem by William Butler Yeats:
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
I won’t try to re-preach the sermon here, but I hope this background helps explain something of how I came up with this blog’s title. At least, when you see 1,110 you’ll be reminded of this little object lesson:
You can be traveling at 85 times the speed of sound and yet be still and at peace orbiting the constant, stationary and centered grip of the Master. Or, you can lose this tethering force, and began accelerating in an ever-widening gyre, faster and farther away from who and what you are in Him.
How fast are you spinning?