 Randy in Cuba (1990s) I was planning on going to Cuba last year, but I finally decided against it. The nurse didn't know for sure, but in her opinion, she said she thought Dad probably had about two weeks to a month left. That was August. It's now January. I'm glad I cancelled the trip. It was the right thing to do. Dad's still here. I went to a memorial service of an old family friend the other day. She was 59 or 60 years old. She died on Christmas Eve. It was one of the most beautiful and emotionally moving memorials I've ever been to. Did I mention she died on Christmas Eve? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The older I get the stranger and clearer life seems to get. Strange, because it seems like more people I know are dying. Clearer, because things I've so often focused on, I've realized now don't really matter. Here were people's Top 10 New Year's resolutions for 2015, according to statisticbrain.com:
I was reading a bit of Viktor Frankl's classic work, Man's Search for Meaning today. A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way-an honorable way-in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infitinite glory." This, from a man dealing with the daily horrors of Auschwitz. I wonder what he would say about people's resolutions?
You see that Top 10 list? Love and family are nine and ten. Yep, things are stranger and clearer to me now. It's clear to me that love is what really matters. Life will teach you that. It's good if you can realize it before it's too late though. I'm gonna try and love more in 2017. -Chad Bozarth |
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