Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Prudent and the Simple

The prudent sees danger and hides himself,
but the simple go on and suffer for it.

Proverbs 27:12

Monday, July 26, 2010

A Fork in the Road


The Three Trees, Rembrandt, 1643

“…Life is a bent path among branching possibilities—after you move past a fork in the road, you cannot get back.”
John Updike, In the Beauty of the Lilies

I've been thinking of this quote from Updike for the past couple of weeks. It is wonderful yet intimidating when life presents us with possibilities. We pray that we will take the right path, make the right decision; we should indeed carefully consider the possibilities. However, I think there are times and situations when we can get back to that fork in the road. When we know we have chosen the wrong path, it would be foolish to keep going down that road and hope for the best. I believe we can retrace our steps (it will probably be arduous, requiring sweat and determination, and perhaps embarrassment and humility), but it sure beats pridefully stumbling down the path of stones and briars, absorbing unnecessary injuries that will take a lengthy time to heal, and acquiring a lifetime of scars.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Teach Us to Number Our Days

...following up on my previous post about living life in earnest...

A prayer of Moses in Psalm 90 speaks similarly of living life earnestly, with God-given wisdom and God-ward purpose. In the Psalm, I am reminded that it is the eternal God who not only gives me life but is the one who sustains my life. My life may be brief and fleeting (even if I live to 80!), but there is much that God would have me do. And in order to live my life fully in the "living present" (Longfellow), I need God to teach me to number my days that I may gain a heart of wisdom to live each of my days purposefully for Him (Psalm 90:12), and not flippantly for myself. When I wake up each morning, may He grace me with an acute awareness of His unchanging love. May He be so gracious as to establish the work of my hands for the day, helping me to recognize the opportunities that He has set before me, giving me the eyes to see beyond my own truncated agenda, and granting me the will and strength to bid His call (especially when what He is calling me to do is inconvenient, difficult or unpopular).

I believe we can indeed "make our lives sublime" (Longfellow), but only when our motivation, focus and purpose rest beyond ourselves. For if they come from within ourselves, we become proud and self-absorbed!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Life is Earnest


Painting by Jacob van Strij (1756–1815)


I was recently reminded of a poem that I first heard from my father. It's A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I can see my dad with my mind's eye, smiling as he often did, telling me not to live life like dumb driven cattle but to be a hero in the strife of life. I don't think he particularly meant doing heroic things, but rather living life purposefully.

As I read the poem anew, I am impressed by Longfellow's reminder to live life fully in the present. Our past shapes us, our future directs us, but we need to live earnestly in the here and now, with a sense of purpose that is beyond ourselves.

Here is the poem:

A PSALM OF LIFE
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.