Life

In the middle of life is the word “if” – and that seems to be the problem for a lot of people: “If only I… If only this… If only we… If only they… – If only people would stop moping and start coping, that’s what I say.

What is the meaning of life? The law of averages tells us that during a typical lifetime the average person will sleep for about 23 years; spend around six years watching television; about three years eating and drinking; another three years getting either dressed or undressed, and around nine months in the bathroom (more if you’re a woman)! Now, there must be more to life than this and quite frankly, there is.

Marshall Field (1835-1906), the US entrepreneur, presented twelve principles, which, he said, people needed to fully understand, in order to determine life’s core values. Here they are:

The brevity of time

The power of perseverance

The rewards of hard work

The importance of simplicity

The worth of character

The fruits of kindness

The power of example

The call of duty

The value of economy

The virtue of patience

The development of talent

The joy of creativity

The following prose, “If I Had My Life To Live Over Again,” is attributed to the late Nadine Stair of Louisville, Kentucky, USA. It is estimated that Ms Stair wrote this poem around 1976, when she was in her late 80’s/early 90’s and dying of cancer.

If I Had My Life To Live Over Again…

I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.

I’d relax, I would limber up and I would be sillier

than I have ever been this trip.

I would take fewer things seriously.

I would take more chances.

I would take more trips.

I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers,

I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles but

I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of these people who live sensibly

and sanely hour after hour,

day after day, oh, I’ve had my moments and if

I had it to do over again,

I’d rather have more of them.

In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.

Just moments, one after another instead of living so

many years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those persons who never goes

anywhere without a thermometer,

a hot water bottle, a raincoat, a parachute.

If I had to do it over again

I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had to live over, I would start barefoot

earlier in the Spring and stay that way

later in the Fall.

I would go to more dances.

I would ride more merry-go-rounds.

I would pick more daisies.

Imagine cutting a single rose off a rose bush and sticking it in a glass of water. It looks good and smells good but really it’s dying. It has been cut off from its source of life. You can feed it champagne, buy it designer accessories and play it uplifting music all day long, but in a few days you’d see that it really was lifeless. Just like the rose, people are cut off from the “life source”. God is the source of real life but because of our disobedience we can’t have any of it. I’ve met people who argue, “But I feel great about my life”. Sure, but so does the rose in the glass of water… for a while! The Bible says that we are all “dead in our transgressions” (Ephesians 2:1). That’s not a good situation to be in. Fortunately, God has a solution that deals with the problem. – In botanical science, there is a process known as ‘grafting’ which allows us to take a single rose stem and restore it back onto the branch from which it came. There it receives new life from its source. God has being doing a similar thing for centuries. When someone becomes a Christian, they are instantly joined back to their life source – God.

Source: adapted from John Dickson, Hanging in There, p.13-14

Max Lucado writes: ‘A little boy is on the beach. He packs the sand with plastic spades in to a bright red bucket. Then he upends the bucket and a sandcastle is created. A man is in his office. He shoves papers into stacks and delegates assignments. Numbers are jiggled, contracts are signed, and a profit is made. – Two builders; two sandcastles. They see nothing and make something. And for both, the tide will rise and the end will come. Yet that’s where the similarities cease. For the boy sees the end while the man ignores it. Watch the boy as dusk approaches. As the waves near, the wise child begins to clap. There is no sorrow. No fear. No regret. He knew this would happen. He is not surprised. And when the great wave finally crashes upon his castle and his masterpiece is sucked into the sea, he smiles, picks up his tools, takes his father’s hand and goes home. The grown-up however, is not so wise. As the wave-of-years collapses on his castle he is terrified. He hovers over the sandy monument he protected. He blocks the waves from the walls he has made. Salt-water soaked and shivering he scowls at the incoming tide. ‘It’s my castle,’ he defies. The ocean need not respond. Both know to whom the sand belongs… Go ahead and build, but build with a child’s heart. When the sun sets and the tides take; applaud. Salute the process of life, then take your Father’s hand and go home.’

Source: quoted in The UCB Word For Today, 5/8/2007

One night a man had a dream that he was talking to God. “What surprises you most about mankind?” the man asked. And God answered, “That they get bored with childhood. They rush to grow up and then long to be children again: That they lose their health to get money and then lose their money to restore their health: That by thinking anxiously about the future they forget the present, so much so that they neither live in the present nor the future: And that they live as if they will never die and die as if they never lived!”