For the moment...

How much time do you have?

The answer, of course, is “I don’t know.” None of us knows for certain the day or hour when our life on this earth will end. Oh sure…we can manipulate the system to a certain extent. Plenty of exercise and rest. Good diet. You know the routine. But all the bran muffins or deep knee bends in the world won’t change the inevitable. We are mortal, and we will die.

The subject is close to my heart as I come to grips with the death of a friend and teacher. The earthly end for John came suddenly and at what seems more and more like an early age. It simply drives home the point that there are limits…that not everything is within our control.

Better, then, to concentrate on those things which we can influence. Better, then, to focus less time and anxiety on our dying and more on the value of our living.

On July 13 back in 1989, our neighbor passed away. She was in her mid-twenties…a bright and lively young woman who taught in the nearby Catholic elementary school. She went in for what was supposed to be routine surgery and died on the operating table.

Her death was a wake-up call for me…a big dose of my own mortality. It became clear that it was time to quit running away, and to do what I had sensed for some time was my true vocation. Over the course of the next year, I quit my job, the Mrs. and I sold the house, loaded up our kids and all our worldly possessions, and moved six hours away so that I could go to seminary. Twenty years later I look back on that watershed moment, and am thankful to God...not for the loss, but for the opportunity it bore.

The point is to make the most of what we have. Life is a gift…not a possession. Today is ours because a gracious God has willed it to us. And something about who we are is evident in how we choose to spend the gift of each precious day.

John spent his days well. He was a powerful blessing to those around him. I’m hoping that, at least on balance, the gift of life I’ve been given will eventually be regarded the same way.

And I urge you to join me in this. Oh sure…pass the muffins. Take a hike. Don’t forget your vitamins. Better yet: live today as fully and faithfully as you can. It is what you can do to thank God for the moment.