Oh, the things I know...

Did you know that Mt. Everest gets about two inches taller every year?  It does.  In fact, it is about eight feet taller today than when  Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first climbed it.  

Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay at the summit

I am in possession of this arcane knowledge because I had to teach it this week.  You never learn something so well as when you teach it.

So, one of my students said that it might be a big mountain but all you have to do to climb it is to keep walking.  I doubt that's true.  I mean, at the summit of Everest there is only about 33 percent as much oxygen as at sea level.  So that would seem to indicate that there might be more to it than to just keep walking. But, in the main, my student might be on to something.

There are mountains, but I wonder how much of overcoming is to just keep going. Every day, one foot in front of the other.  We read the readings, say the prayers, hope that it all means something.  Everyday, the summit obscured, we keep walking.

(Photo by AP)