The news bulletins out of Syria this week have cast a desperate pall over the already bleak Middle East. Observers on the ground in Damascus reported that the Syrian government launched a major WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack on its own hapless citizens in the suburbs of that ancient city. Early rumors placed the nerve gas death toll at over 1300 victims.

Here at summer’s end they’re now telling us that brushing our teeth and washing our hands are threatening our prized Great Lakes. And let’s be honest—what would Andrews University be without Lake Michigan? (Union College, of course!) What’s up with this headline? Turns out that beauty product manufacturers have discovered we rather enjoy the gritty feel of that toothpaste on our teeth and the sensation of scrubbing our hand soap gives us (good-bye little germs).

On the occasion of this farewell for the first woman pastor to serve the Pioneer Memorial Church, I would like to digress from the usual focus of this Fourth Watch blog and reflect on the pastoral ministry of Esther Knott and the journey of women in ministry during her sixteen years of spiritual leadership in this congregation. I first met Esther, when she was a graduate student here at Andrews University. I was still new in the Pioneer pastorate, when she stopped by the church office for a visit.

The South Bend Tribune ran a fascinating cover story this week on the Museum of Biodiversity housed on the campus of Notre Dame University. Closed to the public, this climate-controlled museum features a priceless 150-year-old collection of plant specimens from around the globe. The entire herbarium collection is now numbered at 280,000 specimens.  But the goal of the university’s scientists is not simply to enlarge the specimen collection.

Earlier this month I had the privilege of speaking for ten minutes to the Andrews Academy student body for one of their morning worships. I had actually spent an hour and a half the night before writing up a devotional for that worship.

Drip, drip, drip. There are two ways to empty a tankful of water. You can crank open the faucet and let the water flow. Or—and this method is much slower, but just as effective—you can let the faucet drip one drop at a time. Either way the tank will eventually empty. Two government disclosures this week—one from the IRS and the other from the Justice Department—are a reminder that the prized civil liberties upon which this nation was founded can also be emptied by the perennial drip, drip, drip of freedom leakage.

We’re all still shaking our heads with disbelief and joy over the headlines out of Cleveland, Ohio, this week. On Monday afternoon the 911 dispatcher heard the plea of a breathless female voice: “Help me. I’m Amanda Berry. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years now and I’m, I’m here, I’m free now.” Emergency responders were at the door within minutes. “They’re more in there,” the young woman pointed to the second floor of the shuttered up house.

What does the collapse of the Bangladeshi clothing factory have to do with this graduating class of our “best and brightest”? More than meets the eye. I was stunned to watch the now-arrested owner of the doomed factory in Dhaka declare on camera just hours before the collapse that there was no problem with his building—never mind the large cracks in the walls—the building is safe. In fact on the morning of the collapse, the owner and his associates were commanding hesitant workers, mainly women, to enter the factory and resume their shift work.

Twin events in the past few days have revealed the catapulted status the social media now enjoy in our society. The Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath last week and the hacked and tweeted hoax about a White House attack this week are a sobering reminder of the power wielded by a host of cyberspace social networks. “Monday’s bombings, the first major terrorist attack on American soil in the age of smartphones, Twitter and Facebook, provided an opportunity for everyone to get involved.

We were in the middle of our staff meeting Monday afternoon, when my phone beeped a text message. It was from Karen: “Bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.” Everyone around the table grabbed their phone, as with the rest of the nation we watched the first pictures from the marathon finish line. The orange explosion—twice, just a block apart. The surreal pause. Then mayhem. And now the casualty count this morning—3 dead, 183 injured, 13 amputations.