WHEN THE ONCOLOGIST CALLS AND THE LORD SAYS, "Son, ..."

Think back on it, even just a little.  Do you realized how many times from our youth onward we who know we belong to God's family through our spiritual rebirth talk about "the end"?  My most recent "end times" phrase has come allive...so to speak.  I pray the author of the ditty they call an epitaph on my tombstone will include it.  Yes, it comes from deep within my personal and spiritual DNA; "Finish well."  "Wait!...Hey, what do you mean, 'FINISH'" ?!!

 

What if, suddenly, there is a number attached? Like a date, like so many years?  Like 5x365=1826..."more or less," so to speak?  It's the material of novels, drama, and comedies. Here's how USA Today put it: "Death bites. But dying while healthy, rich and free enough to drink life to the last drop is getting great press, thanks to 'Bucket List'".  The comedy about living to the fullest before you "kick the bucket" is three years old and still people are circulating things like, "100 Things To Do Before You Die".  It's great sport.  Unless there's a time frame.   

At lunch after our oncology consult, Carolyn and I drew up a bucket list, and
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CLASS REUNION MESSAGE: LIFE IS SHORT, HARD AND ...

I never said this when I was young.  Especially in high school.  Then comes the 50+ year reunion.  Darick, our son dying at 31, my brother, Craig, in late 20's, a war hero; they didn't say it.  But I did after they passed; "Life is short, life is hard, life is unfair, and it's end is uncertain." I should add, to return the smiles to reunion bliss, maybe in bold type, too, "life can be wondrous and full."

Reunion time.  All these years, all these trails, all these adventures.  They passed so quickly.  Mike, Roger, Ronnie, Bobby, Sharon, Johnny, Coach Sisca, and all the folks I didn't remember well until the stories from back yonder came alive again.  Could they--the stories and the classmates--be this old? 

And what interesting lives.  Some not. BUT . . .

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