As we grow older, we gradually realize that our bodies do not heal as quickly from injury, recover from exercise as rapidly, or return to health after an illness. Like looking in the mirror every day, you don't notice yourself aging until you hold a picture from your youth next to your face. This is the stealth by which age and infirmity creeps up on us all.
One day we are too young and
the next we are too old. One day we are sitting in a high chair wearing a bib
and being fed strained vegetables by our mother, and the next we are sitting in
an a geriatric chair wearing a bib and being fed strained vegetables by our
nurses aid. One day we are gazing through bright eyes at the wonders of the
world and trying to pronounce the name of all the new things we love, and the
next day we are gazing through darkening eyes and wondering at all the unfamiliar
faces of our children and trying to recall their names.
It should give us pause to ask, why do we invest so much time and
energy into trying to build wealth and surrounding ourselves with the tokens of
success which will all soon be left behind when we step across our mortal
threshold? All the while overlooking the most important treasure that we can
attain and offer, love. Love for others and love for God sums up the Prophets
and the Law. "God is Love", declares the very essence of the Divinity.
How many hours a week do we dedicate to experiencing a deeper
relationship of love with friends, family, God, or even total strangers? I bet
you know how many hours you worked last week, but you can't recall the last
time you considered loving more.
Relationships are messy, entail risk, and have uncertainties that
scare us from investing or accepting Love. We will readily invest our life
savings, most of our waking life, and mortgage our children's futures in a
futile quest to stockpile more of the stuff we can never take with us. These
are transient things; our bodies, this earth, all Creation like the lilies of
the field are here today and tossed into the fire tomorrow. Even the very
fabric from which all material things are woven, the atom, will fall apart in
due time. Yet, these are the very things we believe to be important, pressing,
and fulfilling.
We take much for granted, such as our next breath until the moment
you can't have it. Then, you would trade everything you thought so
important for a single lung full of blessed air. In this inevitable moment, you
will understand what truly matters and it won't be your car, your house, your bank
account, or your equity portfolio. It won't be your neatly manicured lawn, your seniority, your pension plan, or your villa by the lake.
No, as your life flickers with the dwindling supply of oxygen in your
blood stream, you will know regret, but it won't be regret for the things thing you
have done, but rather regret for the things you should have done or would do if
you only had a few more breaths of sweet, sweet air. If you could gulp just the tiniest
pant, you could tell the people you Love how much you Love them. You would
spend it all to tell them how important they have been in making this temporary world you
share a better, more beautiful place. In this final mortal moment as your
throat seizes shut and your chest burns hollow, you will recognize the
ones you should have Loved, but didn't because you were busy chasing illusions
of wealth and specters of power. In the rapidly growing darkness, as you feel your body being shucked away, you will plead with the Maker; “I will Love everyone and
appreciate everything, if I could have but one more breath of air.” He will
abstain from action and in that moment you will die.
Someday, not long from now, you will be right here. For one
millionth of a second you will understand the futility of the word "mine", you will surrender everything to the overwhelming power of death and you will pass through the great equalizer of all mankind.
But occasionally, after that moment when life fades to black and
we confront our powerlessness, impotence, and frailty, a precious few of us get
that one blessed breath reprieve. Then, another and suddenly we feel the heavy
weight of our body. We feel the hard labor of breathing again. The gift of this
life may not always seem so wonderful if we return to a pain ridden, decrepit
body (which all of them are) but the lesson we bring back with us is what
really matters.
We may soon neglect how important our next breath may be, but we will not forget what is important, what has true intrinsic value, and what matters in this
mortal life and beyond before that darkness comes for us again.
