![\"UVU](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/02\/800px-UVU_Campus_2312902411_2.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
First of all, I want to remind you yet again of Royal Skousen\u2019s presentation \u2014 7 PM tonight! \u2014 on \u201cTextual Criticism and the Book of Mormon.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In a previous blog entry here a day or two ago, I briefly noted the passing of Kent G. Budge, which I had absolutely not expected.\u00a0 I was sitting in the Paris DeGaulle airport about to catch a transatlantic flight when I received the news, and I passed it on immediately.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n His death has saddened me very much.\u00a0 If I\u2019m not altogether mistaken, we had only met a single time, when he passed through Utah Valley and we had lunch together.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t correspond a lot, and he wasn\u2019t the most frequent commentator on my blog.\u00a0 But he ranked among my favorites.\u00a0 I often found what he had to say quite valuable.\u00a0 And we shared not only our membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> but certain common interests:\u00a0 For example, I first came to Brigham Young University with plans to become an astronomer\/cosmologist; he earned a doctorate in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), although he reported that he had pretty much burned out on astronomy by the end of graduate school and, hence, went on to a career in computational physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory.\u00a0 Both of us were intrigued by geology, though his interest was much more serious and much more developed.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n He knew that I\u2019ve been dreaming about convening a conference (and eventually publishing a compilation of conference papers) relating to religion and science, and he had expressed interest in participating.\u00a0 The idea wasn\u2019t, isn\u2019t, to reconcile the two, or to try to adduce scientific reasons for faith \u2014 though I\u2019m deeply interested in both of those subjects \u2014 but, in this particular case, to invite religious scientists to speak about science as itself a religious experience.\u00a0 That conference idea has recently been back near the top of my to-do list, and I regret, more than I can say, the fact that Kent Budge won\u2019t be around for it.\u00a0 I seem to recall his once writing to me that, for him, his dawning realization of the power of the Boltzmann equation<\/a> was among his greatest personal spiritual experiences.\u00a0 So far, though, I haven\u2019t been able to find that comment from him.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know the specifics, but I\u2019m sadly confident that Kent\u2019s passing came as the result of a terrible automobile accident that occurred here in Utah on 20 August 2022.\u00a0 He had been hospitalized multiple times since then.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been intending to visit him, but I\u2019ve been out of the state virtually the entire time since his accident and, when I was briefly in the state, he seemed to be out of the hospital and (I thought) back in New Mexico.\u00a0 My most recent email exchange with him came on 28 October:\u00a0 He had, it turned out, been hospitalized again but was back out and staying with his sister.\u00a0 My concern was that he might return home to New Mexico before my 12 November return from the Middle East, and that I wouldn\u2019t be able to visit with him.\u00a0 I so much regret the fact that I was more right than I knew.\u00a0 I can\u2019t visit with him.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here is the relevant portion of my announcement of his accident and his injuries here on my blog, back in September:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We have a highly valued commenter here at\u00a0Sic et Non<\/em>\u00a0who goes by the moniker of dCyl.\u00a0 Having heard some troubling news about him roughly three weeks ago, I wrote to him privately back on 21 August, as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m told that you were involved in a serious auto accident and that you\u2019re in a hospital in Utah Valley.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m so sorry to hear it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know whether this note will reach you or not. If I were in town, I would definitely drop by to see you. Unfortunately, I\u2019m out of the country, and I\u2019ll be out of the country for the next couple of weeks or thereabouts. I hope that you\u2019ll be home by the time I get back.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If, though, there\u2019s anything that I can do for you, please let me know.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n With his kind permission, I share most of his response to me, which arrived just this morning:<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Great to hear from you, Dan. Yes, I got T-boned trying to make a left turn on the Highway of Death in Spanish Fork. Don\u2019t know how it happened; I remember absolutely nothing of the accident itself. I fear I may have misread a signal, but it\u2019s also possible I got hit by someone running a red light. I\u2019m told the first responders did not think I would survive. I was taken to Utah Valley Hospital and the superb ER staff pulled me through, and now I\u2019m recuperating at home in New Mexico. Injuries: a collapsed lung, the other hemorrhaging, two broken vertebra (fortunately not endangering my spinal cord \u2014 a tender mercy) and three busted ribs, along with quite a lot of internal injuries. Got four pints of blood == please encourage your readers to donate blood next time they have a chance.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Also a blow to the head that caused a small amount of intracranial bleeding. I was given the cognitive test that Presidents Trump and Biden were so proud of passing and the therapist concluded that I normally operate on a high enough cognitive level that the test was unlikely to detect any small decline \u2014 but I seem to be okay. I mentally went through the equations central to my work, and was slightly alarmed that I couldn\u2019t remember the name of Boltzmann\u2019s Equation. It came to me later \u2014 perhaps I was just a little juiced on painkillers.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I guess I\u2019ve had my own near-death experience. I don\u2019t remember anything as dramatic as you read about, just that when I came to in my wrecked car, with paramedics in the process of tearing out the left side of my car to get me out, it was like coming out of a pleasant conversation I had been having with Someone. I think I can say now that, while I don\u2019t look forward to the process of getting there, death itself holds no further terrors for me. I know now that the exit interview will be loving, and that God is not looking for reasons to condemn us; on the contrary, He is looking for excuses to forgive us and bless us.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019re interested in learning more about Kent Budge \u2014 a very interesting person to learn from \u2014 here are four of his sites:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/a>