Each to Each

This earthly pilgrimage is one with a definitive end, and we know it. Memento mori—remember your death—the chanted whisper of the Carthusians echoes in our hearts even now.

“Carpe diem!” we chirp.

These phrases are good and true and beautiful, mottos to live by, to be sure.

But all too often, they are repeated in order to spin us into endless action. To not waste a moment. To run harder and faster and to never stop for a breath because time is running out. Happen to your life, they say, don’t let it happen to you.

But what if remembering our death is less about doing and more about becoming? What if seizing the day is less about grasping and more about loving?

The way we determine if our time is well spent is usually through the lens of our achievements. But as Christians, we are called to determine how well our lives have been lived by how widely and deeply we have learned give and receive love.

So here’s the catch, life is made up of moments, forever is composed of nows, as Emily Dickinson says. Perhaps, we must shift our understanding of time and the ways we use it.

If we don’t want to waste our precious days, we would do well to remember that we are given this life to love, because we were first loved by Love Himself.

Again and again Jesus reminds His disciples not to worry, not to toil and spin (Luke 12:27).

Do the work set before you. Be faithful to the places you’ve been called. But refuse grow frantic. Refuse to define your worth through the arbitrary rubric of your work.

It is good that you are here. It is good that your heart beats inside your chest. You do not need to prove your life is worth living.

Your work is important, but not nearly as important as you.

Let your actions spill over from a cup steeped in grace and percolated in peace. Don't waste time, dear friends, but what I mean by that is don’t waste you.

We only get one wild and precious life, but I don’t think that means we are to run ourselves into the ground as we go, but rather, we are to learn to glorify the goodness we’ve been given in this present moment. Each to each (a nod to T. S. Eliot).