Teach me to Number My Days aright, that I may Gain a Heart of Wisdom.
I watched some videos today of the tsunami. Waves coming in without warning, holiday makers laughing one moment and running for their lives the next, people taking videos of the waves and then getting swept away, little children playing on the beach one minute and then struggling for their lives the next. Holiday makers still in bikinis and beach shorts walking back in a bedraggled, bruised, shocked group.
And then worse images. Parents cradling limp children with dazed expressions on their faces, a mother weeping in anguish, an old man clinging on to a wall and struggling to climb up as the waves rose, bodies crackling in the flames in an Indian village.
No difference between rich and poor, foreign or local.
2004 brought many surprises, and not all of them were good ones. The SARS outbreak and the tsunami disaster claimed so many lives. It didn't matter whether you were young or old, what race or religion you were. Time took you, swiftly and unexpectedly. There wasn't any time to prepare - no time to quit smoking, no time to ask reconciliation, no time to say I love you, no time to say goodbye.
What will 2005 bring? New advances in philosophy, new miracle medicines? Anti-wrinkle creams, another weary cycle of fashion and a couple more books on the beauty of logic and human reasoning? I think 2005 will bring all these and more, but I also think 2005 will bring unpleasant surprises, catastrophes, unexpected incidents which will remind us all that we can't take life for granted.
When I'm all caught up in whether I look picture-perfect for lectures that day, or all upset because dinner was a little lumpy pastaesque thing, it's difficult to remember that I am but a blade of grass in the wind. Millions came and went before me, and millions will come and go after me. I don't know how many days I have before me. Reports say there may be another earthquake on a huge scale in a decade or so, and I don't know whether even invincible Singapore will be spared from that. But I do know that I need to learn how to "number my days aright", to set my heart on the eternal, to use what I have been given, to make a difference. To care until it hurts so much, to give without asking for anything in return, to silently contribute without expecting acknowledgement, and always to know that anyone, at any place, could go at anytime and thus to pour out a life for as many as possible.
And then worse images. Parents cradling limp children with dazed expressions on their faces, a mother weeping in anguish, an old man clinging on to a wall and struggling to climb up as the waves rose, bodies crackling in the flames in an Indian village.
No difference between rich and poor, foreign or local.
2004 brought many surprises, and not all of them were good ones. The SARS outbreak and the tsunami disaster claimed so many lives. It didn't matter whether you were young or old, what race or religion you were. Time took you, swiftly and unexpectedly. There wasn't any time to prepare - no time to quit smoking, no time to ask reconciliation, no time to say I love you, no time to say goodbye.
What will 2005 bring? New advances in philosophy, new miracle medicines? Anti-wrinkle creams, another weary cycle of fashion and a couple more books on the beauty of logic and human reasoning? I think 2005 will bring all these and more, but I also think 2005 will bring unpleasant surprises, catastrophes, unexpected incidents which will remind us all that we can't take life for granted.
When I'm all caught up in whether I look picture-perfect for lectures that day, or all upset because dinner was a little lumpy pastaesque thing, it's difficult to remember that I am but a blade of grass in the wind. Millions came and went before me, and millions will come and go after me. I don't know how many days I have before me. Reports say there may be another earthquake on a huge scale in a decade or so, and I don't know whether even invincible Singapore will be spared from that. But I do know that I need to learn how to "number my days aright", to set my heart on the eternal, to use what I have been given, to make a difference. To care until it hurts so much, to give without asking for anything in return, to silently contribute without expecting acknowledgement, and always to know that anyone, at any place, could go at anytime and thus to pour out a life for as many as possible.
1 Comments:
An excellent post.
People so often get wrapped up in their own self-importance, they forget that they are but one of 6 1/2 billion living human beings, and we are only one of hundred's of thousands of known lifeforms - and not even one of the most populous. Billions have come before us, and if we are more careful, trillions will come after us.
Every life is special, to those that know it, other than that we are all just drops of rain in huge oceans, ready to be spilt at any time. It is sad that we only notice the huge splashes, and not the constant leaks that cause the real damage.
We managed to donate, what, £50m in a couple of days for the earthquake repairs. Yet ~30,000 children die a day from poverty. If only people could see at a higher resolution, not just huge things.
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Orbling, at 11:14 am
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