Sunday Musings - April 23, 2023
Priorities
Last weekend several of us gathered in Canton, Texas for my younger brother’s 80th birthday. His two children, their wives and their three adult children, three of his four siblings, and his son-in-law were able to travel from the Tulsa, Denver, Wheeling, WV, Nashville and Houston areas to celebrate the birthday of this extraordinary man. All of us were blessed to be healthy enough, able to block out time and allocate some our financial resources to make the trip a priority. One sibling was not able to find someone to care for her animals and, thus, sadly was unable to be present in person.
The fact that it was not only my brother’s 80th, but that his transplanted kidney quit working were certainly stark reminders of what all of us always know: “We are only promised this moment.” Yet we often act as if we have endless moments to do what is important. When young, we expect to have many moments even though all of us have borne witness to those so called “premature” deaths of loved ones as a result of accidents, relatively rare aneurysms at age 26 or younger, visitors such as aids, a pandemic such as covid, gun violence and war.
Most of us do not have unlimited travel budgets, in home care for our children or other dependents, the ability to work remotely as long as there is internet service, unoppressed servants to clean, do laundry, cook or maintain the perfect Home and Garden quality landscaping, or the luxury of knowing others will assume our community responsibility. We must show up to do life tasks. Yet, many of us, in times of life-threatening illness, funerals, or weddings and significant birthdays carve out relationship time for those far and near.
Our paternal Grandmother, Fannie Mae Scott Pickett, most evening after completing farm chores, dinner and dinner cleanup would announce “Now is the time for intellectual, emotional and spiritual chores.” This could include reading, playing music (instruments and not just the radio or television which she did not have), praying, stimulating conversation, studying or writing letters. In those days one did not have the internet, affordable long distance phone access or even non-party line phone service. One wrote notes or lengthy letters sharing news, opinions and concerns. For a long time, I saved letters I received from her and many others. A few years ago, I threw away hundreds of letters knowing no one else would want them when I died. I reread many of them before allowing them to join the “dust to dust” legacy which is the birthright of all.
I have always maintained that time is an artificial construct although friends who are physicists often tell me that is not the case. Time is a mechanism for measuring a distance from point A to point B. In moving from point, A to point B time does not, one may have noticed, move at a constant speed. This time of year, in the United States, time is moving very slowing for many students and teachers. From the perspective of nearly 83 years time leaps forward. Just the other day I was 16 wondering what tools I would select to carve out a future career, love relationships, travel and a long list of potential experiences. Just yesterday we brought our 52-year-old son home from the hospital. Just ….
How do we decide to spend this limited time when we have such a myriad of commitments and possibilities? Are we investing more in stocks, bonds, retirement accounts, material possessions, or love relationships? If in love relationships which ones and how often.
Perhaps the best one may hope for is to remember to be honest and intentional about how to spend one’s time budget. One may want to daily remember that only love lives on eternally. Love is, after all, energy. It does not die when our earthly body rejoins the earth. It lives on in DNA; in the very dust which feeds the plants which feeds the animals which feeds us humans.
I am reminded of “Holy Sonnets: Death be not proud” by John Donne.
The last lines of which read:
“One short sleep past, we wake eternally.
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”
In honoring life, we must honor death which honors life.
One moment
One life
One chance to love.
Written April 23, 2023
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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