I’ve heard people say that “things happen in 3s.” If you’ve read this blog over the years, you’ve figured out that my favorite number is 3 — or at least some variation of it like 30 or 33. But 3 is an interesting number and even though it isn’t specifically mentioned, lots of things wouldn’t be complete if it wasn’t for 3…like, for instance, the past, present and future. That seems complete with three — if you just said, present and future… what happened before? Past and present begs to know what’s next and if there is just past and future, what about now? You need all three to make it complete. Same thing for beginning, middle and end. I think I’ve heard somewhere that three is actually considered the number of completion.
There’s a lot of things we just automatically associate the number 3 with, like 3 strikes and you’re out, a 3 ring circus, the 3 little pigs, the 3 stooges, 3 coins in a fountain, etc.
But a lot of our phrases and terms that we use all the time are made of of threes…
Like — faith, hope and charity; the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; rock, paper, scissors; the good, the bad and the ugly; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; small, medium and large; on your mark, get set, go; hear no evil, see no evil, speak evil; of the people, for the people, by the people; ready aim, fire and so it goes.
The number 3 is used in the Bible 467 times — obviously there’s the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but there were the Three Wise Men who brought three gifts — gold, frankincense and myrrh. As for those 467 Bible references to 3… I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader to check out.
Three is the first number that can mean a few or many… 1 is only a single, 2 is a couple, but when you get to 3, you can start using “few” or “many” and of course 3 is the “least” of few or many. You need at least 3 legs to make a table that will stand by itself. There are 3 primary colors from which you can make the other colors. Under Muslim law, a man can divorce his wife by repeating the phrase “I divorce thee” 3 times, and if you catch a Leprechaun and set him free, the Leprechaun will grant you 3 wishes.
I heard a country singer (I don’t remember which one) once say, “to succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone,a backbone and a funny bone.” And Casey Stengel said, “three things can happen in a baseball game – you can win or you can lose, or it can rain.”
Since we’re now in the home stretch of appointing a new Supreme Court Justice, I think a quote by Ruth Ginsburg is worth pondering: “We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three little words, “We, the people…”
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