Living Now

Everywhere we look, nature is telling us that our year is ending: that summer is past, winter coming, and the golden days of autumn are leaves blowing away. Such a colorful and delightful end to the hot extravagances of summer, and the overrich excesses of early fall. Those days are past. We have gathered wood, and are lighting fires to dispel the chill air. Soon we hear readings from the Bible about the end of the age, and coming days of gloom and glory. Some of the less balanced folks around us talk about the “end of the world,” either by “total corruption,” by a “total collapse of the system,” or by supposedly man-made “climate change” that threatens to “make the whole planet uninhabitable,” as a man running for President recently announced. Despite the bizarre apocalyptic dreams of windy minds and flapping tongues, it is true that everything existing changes, and that the unknown God is moving reality to some unimaginable condition beyond what comes into being and passes away.  

Despite and fears and imaginings, however, some present questions need to be asked. One question that should be pressing for each of us is this: How should I live my life now? A former student of mine posed a particular form of this good question to me last week, a question which we might all consider: Suppose you had two months to live, two months before you died. How would you live? What would you do?” I told him, “I will think about that,” and he said, “No, live now as if you had only two months to live.” Taking his challenge, I immediately began acting as though I had only two months to live, and I quickly realized that some of my activities make no sense on the edge of death, whereas other activities do. Why should I bother planning for my future, or go through an operation and its demanding recovery, or get my car repaired, or chat with people casually, or preach what I do, if I have so little time to live? What would I let go of quickly, and what would I do, if I had two months to live? What would you do, if you lived on such “borrowed time,” on a two-month lease of life? What would you let go, as a no longer needed part of your life? Whom or what would you seek out?

As a sample, I share of few thoughts that occur to me—although by no means am I done thinking about my two-month sentence. Most urgently, I would get a will drawn up, and I would make special and detailed arrangements for someone to take devoted care of Moses, someone who would love him as he deserves. I would visit my sister and her husband in San Diego, and my brother and his wife in Utah. What could I possibly say to you, the parishioners?  “Prepare to meet your God!” And I would spend much time preparing myself to meet God. To this end, I would spend time in solitude and quiet contemplation. And I would hope to be able to walk along the ocean, gazing silently out to sea, knowing that I am going out with the ebbing tide.