by: Uchenna Le ChenChen
We are one month into 2021.
In a lot of ways time has sped by, and in other ways it has moved at an agonizing snail’s pace.
Many have had good fortune and are still thriving. Yet, some have experienced great loss and are mourning.
If you have lost anyone this year, season or month, please know that our hearts can relate and we love you. Drop a comment and at a minimum you will get a virtual hug.
Mortality is such a fragile thing. It isn’t easy to lose someone you love.
Of the many plaques seen in the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, the most striking for me was one that spoke from the perspective of those who have passed on. It reads “What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be.” It is daunting, yet truthful.
My thoughts split into two main directions when I reflect on the fragility and point of our mortality.
The first is that there are many who are living but are not alive. The second is that life, since it does end, is about more than when we live or by how much. Instead, life is about HOW we live, and what we do to impact another.
Being truly purposeful is more than relishing the spoils and fulfillment of your own personal successes, but about elevating others into their own. It is so easy to neglect the importance of this without pressing intentionally into it.
On this new day, the first of February, let us set our minds and hearts on being more than just people living our lives, but on being instruments. Instruments for other people.
Adjust your field of view to focus on the people you can impact. Expand your world to include their needs. Build in their needs into your needs and plan accordingly.
This is what it means to love your neighbor.
Be concerned about them, and stretch out your heart and hands beyond your comfort and habit.
Joining us to care for our homeless neighbors is an example of one way you can impact lives that are currently dwindled in their “aliveness”.
One day the only thing left of us will be the things we did for others, and the things that came to be because we were.
Legacy is greater than life.