Touch Of The Hand

In an old Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown is pictured on the beach …

He is building a beautiful sand castle. When the castle is completed, a very self-satisfied Charlie stands back to admire his sand-made treasure. A single raindrop falls. And then, in the cartoon’s final frame, the rain is coming down in torrents obliterating his masterpiece. Then, Charlie, looking very pensive, says philosophically, There is a lesson of some kind in this.

Tourists who visit the Egyptian Museum in Cairo are likely the hear their guide say, You could always measure the greatness of an ancient Egyptian ruler by the splendor of his burial place. The greater he was regarded, the greater was the preparation for his final resting place. Actually, these burial customs for Egypt’s high and mighty went through an evolutionary process that culminated in the building of the Pyramids. And those mighty pyramids are symbolic of the power and the money and the prestige of their dead occupants. But, standing before…