The lectern wobbled as John placed his notes and a water bottle upon it.  The notes slid to the restraining edge while the bottle teetered as he tried to steady it.  Surveying the room, he sighed.  The chairs were all crooked.  Surrounding the chairs were candy wrappers, Cola cans, and confetti.  He sighed again and began cleaning.

John knew what he wanted the room to look like, and so in short order, the chairs were aligned in even rows and all but the confetti had been cleared.  From the back of the room, he checked out what the audience’s perspective would be.  He sighed, forcibly.  He had wanted to run through his presentation before anyone arrived but was distracted by the two large posters dangling on the wall on each side of the projection screen.

One poster, tilting to the left, was of Mother Teresa and the other was of Albert Einstein.  Einstein astride a bike was noticeably off kilter as well.    John respectfully tried to take them down and, finding they were firmly attached, started tapping on the frames to straighten them out.

John had hoped that a few important people would come, but he did not expect to have to share the stage with Teresa and Albert.  What to do?  He had nothing to say about faith publically, and relatively speaking, even less to say about physics.  Like it or not, Teresa and Albert were going to be part of his presentation, even if he tried to pretend they were not there.

John looked at the clock. Good.  He still had a half hour before anyone would arrive.  John opened his laptop, delighted to discover a Wi-Fi connection.  Once the browser came up, he googled ‘mother teresa eistein’. With a single click he had found a page of quotes. A few caught his eye.

With digital adroitness, John created two new PowerPoint slides inserting one in the beginning and one at the end of the presentation.

When John’s presentation concluded, he was standing in front, centered, and breathing in the applause. The final slide still shone across the screen.

“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.”
– Mother Teresa

Returning to the lectern, John took hold of the water bottle.  He looked towards Teresa’s face, saluting her with his water. He turned to Albert, offering a grateful smile, reflected on the first quote…

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein