Too High A Price

       Know anyone immortal? How about 200 years old? No? Hmmm…I guess its true then: no one gets out alive. Remember when you were a teenager and couldn’t wait to enjoy the fruits of adulthood, as a wise man said: youth is wasted on the young. So many truths of youth take on a different patina when viewed with experienced eyes. Who wouldn’t love to have the energy, the recuperative power, the abs and above all the knees of our youth? But at what price?

      Looking back at the younger me I was filled with self as only the young can be, I had all the answers and was quick to enlighten you though I was clueless to down right dismissive on spiritual matters. I placed worldly possessions, accomplishments and titles on the pedestal of success, relying on them for personal significance, holding these things as important, paramount, chasing the fleeting chimera of perceived entitlement, believing spiritual living was archaic, pointless in these modern times. So the query is: Would I surrender the work done to Live on the Spiritual Basis, the visible and invisible scars so well earned forgotten, to recapture youths glow and promise?

     I think not. The price too high where spiritual pride, self-righteousness and wallowing in self-love and hedonism, especially at the expense of others are on the bill. So I guess I’m stuck with these knees, afternoon naps and the memory of a 28 inch waist. It’s not so bad though, although I have to don reading glasses my vision has never been better, I see with the clarity that comes by trusting and relying upon infinite God, rather than my finite self. I have learned the hard lesson of not answering the unasked questions, having learned through bitter experience that as much as we may wish to help, that help is not welcomed if offered unbidden. Today there is no price too great to live free of the bondage of self.

    So when the day comes, hopefully sometime from now, when I step into eternity my life will be measured not by the love I received or even earned, but by that which I gave freely, the blessings given anonymously without personal expectation the marks of a life lived well. I really do miss those knees though.