Today was Sverdrup Forum Day. Our annual Georg Sverdrup Society meeting for students of our seminary, and others interested, in which papers are read and discussion encouraged.

I usually read an extract from one of my translations of Sverdrup’s works, but this year somebody else did that duty, and I was asked to do opening devotions instead.

I’ve written before about my phobia concerning praying in public. But I wrote it all out ahead of time, and read it from my printed text. That was not a problem.

I ran short, time-wise, but not by accident. I knew, from experience, that these shebangs tend to run long. Nobody complained about my brevity, and the forum, as it happened, ended almost precisely on schedule.

[Insert here labored metaphor about the concept of brevity and its application to life.]

As I’ve told you, I just finished translating a literary biography.

A question occurred to me – “Is there such a thing as a genuinely good biography that isn’t sad?”

I once read (I think) a quotation by Oscar Wilde (can’t find it online, so maybe it’s one of those made-up things. Still good): “Tragedy is comedy plus time.”

In other words, you can make any comedy a tragedy by just leaving the curtain up. In the end, everybody dies, just like in Hamlet.

You’ve got two choices in a death. It can be too soon, or too late. There never seems to be a perfect time.

Most of us look forward to a long life. But that often means a slow decline as health problems increase, and friends die, and the world gradually turns alien and dangerous around us.

I just wrote a novel where two main characters die Viking deaths.

There’s something to be said for that.

Does this mean I’m ready to go now, while I’m still ambulatory and not wearing a diaper?

Are you kidding? No way.