It’s pretty tough to be down in the dumps for too long when you have weather like this to remind you of all the good there is in life.  This weekend I have been grateful for the warmth of sunshine, the songbirds in the morning, for the brown grass that’s peeking through the melting snow, and the cheeriness of many who are affected positively by the same.  I’m thankful for people who show that they care about me when I don’t feel loveable (through emails and prayers, comments left on this thing, or visits), and I’m thankful for good books that can take me into another world and give me something else to think about besides myself and my own perspective.  I just finished reading “Morrie: In His Own Words”.  This is the book of wisdom and words of a man who is 77 and whose body is slowly degenerating from ALS.  ALS is a progressive neuromuscular disease that weakens and eventually destroys motor neurons, which connects the brain to the skeletal muscle tissue.  So this short little book is about a man who has been given a death sentence and how he lives in the midst of that knowledge, reaching out to family and friends, how he grieves his losses and helps his friends deal with the one they will face, and how to develop an inner space for meditaion and spiritual connection in the midst of having little privacy with his caregivers ever-present.  He shares his experience of fully living while dying and shows that it’s never too late to be the person you’d like to be. 

This book was a timely one for me to read…last weekend I attended my cousin’s funeral.  Chris Tucker, just a year older than me, died in a car accident this month, so the thoughts occupying my mind most recently have been questions of life’s purpose, why there has to be suffering, why our world is so messed up that parents have to lose children at all, and the finality of death (in a nutshell).  There’s simply no way for me to articulate the things that have been running through my mind since I learned of Chris’s passing, but more recently since reading Morrie’s book, I have been giving more thought to living.  How does one live well?  What does it mean to live well?  We’re all in the same boat, as Morrie puts it, and it’s going to sink sooner or later.  One hundred and ten years from now no one who is here now will be alive.  And I really like what he says next:

The best preparation for living fully and well is to be prepared to die at any time, because impending death inspires clarity of purpose, a honing in on what really matters to you.  When you feel that the end is near, you are more likely to pay close attention to whatever you treasure…

So that leads me to consider what it is that my life is worth.  What do I treasure and if I’m not in the place I’d like to be, what do I need to do to get there?  Not many conclusions have been reached, but Chris’s death and Morrie’s life/death have reminded me that life is a gift and time here should not be wasted.  I have been also reminded this week, with all the good around me, that God is good and He has always given me what I need in the past, when I need it.  Why do I doubt His presence and ability to work in my life and why do I remain sad when I have nothing really to be sad about?  I woke up yesterday and decided that I am tired of being sad.  I’m sort of tired of trying to do life by myself.  It doesn’t work, and I know this because I’ve walked with God in the past; I have known sweet companionship with Him, and to walk without Him for any length of time after you’ve experienced His closeness is just stupidity.  Don’t know why anyone would choose it…don’t know why I did.  But I want to be done.  Seems so much easier to let Him take the control, let Him fill me up with His love, his peace, and his joy, because I certainly can’t seem to muster any of it on my own, or at least any that lasts.

So that’s what I know today…if you made it through those ramblings, well congratulations you were really bored.  And thanks for caring enough to do it.  I’ve been really bad about reading the blogs of others in recent days…you know, that self-centered thing.  I fully admit to that.  More of Him, less of me.  I’ll try to do better this week.