I have found joy in the belief that God blessed each of us with a wonderful brain and He fully expects us to use it to understand and enhance the Christian faith.  It is common religious jargon to say, “God told me that!”  While I can’t explain what that means for others, such a statement plays out for me in the form of creative ideas coming to mind that are valid, worthwhile, and unequivocal.   In that context, God said to me, “I gave you a brain.  Use it in my defense!  I know I can stand the test!”  

        Every mathematician has a streak of philosopher in him.  This is seen historically in the lives and works of people like Rene Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton,  Blaise Pascal, Johannes Kepler, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead.  While these men were not all theists, their work exemplifies mathematicians making connections between philosophy and/or religion and mathematics.

         My life has been dedicated to writing mathematics textbooks for college students and, if God has truly blessed me with a talent, it seems to be this.  One of my recent goals is to enhance my textbook writing by the inclusion of more applications, a magnificent obsession both unavoidable and heartfelt.  No matter what I am involved in, whether it be eating Wendy’s hamburgers, going bowling, playing golf, playing baseball, or sitting in church, I seem to find mathematics.  That trend recurred in a most unexpected way, following my heart attack in September of 1998.  It is a continuing story.

     September 23, 1998 is my heart attack “birthday.”  The evening of that day, my precious wife Elaine and I went for a walk.  I became aware of a feeling of tightness in my chest.  It bore little resemblance to what I thought chest pains should be; it was not like being  hit with a baseball bat, or having a cement block placed on my chest.   Instead, I seemed to want to push my chest out to relieve the tightness.  Nothing more.  When we got home the tightness went away.

     I went to bed and slept well until I got up about 3:30 AM to go to the bathroom.  The chest tightness was now back, but this time I was in a cold sweat.  Something was wrong!  I woke Elaine and told her that we should drive to the ER.  In hindsight, we should have called an ambulance.  Being her usual law-abiding self, Elaine was stopping at the red lights.  I finally told her to stop, look left and right, and then run the lights.  I knew my condition was worsening.

     To our amazement when we got to the ER, there were no other patients – I had the attention of all the doctors and nurses.  They infused IVs, and connected me to an EKG.  Shortly, the doctor patted me on the shoulder and said, “Well, I have bad news, and good news!  The bad news is that you are having a heart attack.  The good news is that it is on the right side, and that gives you a better chance for recovery.”   I looked over at Elaine sitting nearby, pointed my finger up, and she did as well.  The unstated implication was that we were both praying.  

      My life really did flash before my eyes.  I thought of all the times I had resisted God’s will, pursued my passions instead of his, and thought I was always going to be in control.  My prayer went something like this, “God, you finally have my attention!  I know you are in control of whatever happens from here.  If you want to take me, I’ll accept that.  If you want me to live, it is my preference to stay.  I would love to see my grandchildren (at that time none existed)!”

       At this time, a certain peace came over me that I can never explain.  Elaine commented later that in similar situations, I would normally panic –  but not this time.  I think it was because I had turned everything over to God.  It was not 30 seconds later that I went into cardiac arrest – I coded.   I have an absolutely clear memory of that experience, at least until I passed out.  I soon returned to consciousness, hearing the doctor casually say, “Well, he is back now.”  He had resuscitated me with the defibrillating paddles.  I later saw the rectangular burn marks on my chest; even under that stress, I managed to discover some math – I know that may sound bizarre to a non-mathematician.  It is a wonder I didn’t take their measurements and compute area and perimeter.

      I left the hospital on the 27th of September after receiving two stents for the blocked arteries on the right side of my heart.  It was a real blessing to be treated with the stents, instead of undergoing bypass surgery.  It is a paradoxical, or ironic, fluke of probability, that I had been exercising for several years, watching my diet fairly well and had even passed a treadmill test with flying colors only five weeks before.  My blockage was some combination of bad genetics and poor eating habits from my youth.   As I think back, I am not surprised to have clogged arteries considering the meals we ate.  I recall eating meals consisting entirely of potatoes fried in bacon grease.

       Following my recovery, I asked God what he wanted from me for the rest of my life.  It was at Jubillee Lanes before my bowling league, when the paradoxical message came through, “Marv, look at all the passions you have had in your life –   your sports, bowling, softball, baseball, Purdue University athletics, baseball camps, hiking in Utah, efforts at career advancement, and moving up the academic ladder, all of a self-centered nature.  Why don’t you give me the same passion?”  I heard the message.  It initiated intense reading of the Bible and other theological materials.  I had never read the Bible, rebelling against the “Thees, Thous, and thus sayeths” of the King James Version in my youth.  Now it was like having a straw in a milkshake of wisdom.  I couldn’t slurp up the knowledge fast enough.  I read the Bible six times, but from the more readable New Living Translation, or The Message by Eugene Peterson.  

         I could not believe what I was finding.  You have one guess.  It has to be – mathematics.  Could God give me spiritual wisdom and mathematics at the same time?  I couldn’t be that blessed!  The first mathematics I saw was frequent references to the number seven.  It turns out that the words “seven” or “seventh” are mentioned in the first 21 out of 39 books of the Old Testament.  The first occurrence is the second chapter of Genesis, and the last appearance is in the next to last chapter of the New Testament book of Revelation.  

        Before too long, I had discovered enough applications of mathematics to create a talk which I deliver at professional meetings and in math departments of Christian colleges.  More research and probing ensued which led to the inspiration for this book.