This Life Is For
“These are dangerous days
To say what you feel is to dig your own grave
Remember what I told you
If you were of the world they would love you”
— Sinead O’Conner; Black Boys on Mopeds
If there was only this one life to live, if our years were so short that at 70 we were done once and for all, what would I have done different?
Would I have comforted less? Smiled with less joy? Loved with less passion? Would I have withheld any of the good done for others?
No!
Less selfishness, less fear, less worrying about the boxes into which others may put me. Or in which I might place them. More of everything good. More words of kindness, more laughter, more dancing… and more tears. More failure, for only through failure can we truly learn. More hugs, more kisses, more joy, and more of us—of you, of me.
What is this life for if not to be lived and celebrated. Less of these four walls. More people, more travel, more art, more music, more poetry!!
More books!
GOD! Joi de vivre!!!
Oh, God, help me! To be all of the good I see in others these next 20 years.
And when the joy drifts to grey, or black, let me discover the strength in loss. Help me to bear those costs with dignity and master the power to celebrate having been a part of their journey when I was and not let some few laments color lifetimes of mosaic happiness and love. Allow me the power and the grace to bear my own demons and to help those I love to bear theirs. To all, allow me be memorable, indelible, infinite.
Reveal to me, please, the myriads in the invisible realm, ready for your war. Open my eyes like the secretary’s shed scales to see the reality shrouded in clouds of fear and doubt. May your winds fill my sails of faith and drive me across this human ocean to the undying lands.
If this life is all there is, thank you for letting me be me. Thank you for helping me minimize the damage I could have done and seeing me through my darkness to be for others a reflection of you when I was. And pray will be again.
