"Is it not extraordinary to be reminded how insignificant the sickly pale color of my flesh is when placed beside the dazzling color-spectrum chart of people around the globe? "
“Oh no, not more life’s lessons!”
by Charlie Leck
A while ago I wrote a blog about an experience I’d had in a single day that pounded some of “life’s lesson” into my thick skull. One of our kids reacted to the blog with a sarcastic and cynical remark: “Oh, no, not more life’s lessons.”
That rattled me a bit. I sat around thinking about it for a few hours.
“How vacuous,” I thought. “The comment of someone removed from life’s realities – of someone insensitive to the precarious precipice along which we walk every single day – of someone too self absorbed to see the pronounced weaknesses of the human soul, mind and body.”
Well, that’s over-reaction! Nevertheless, I went back and read that blog and realized I wouldn’t change a word – except for one that I had misspelled.
I still need to keep my eyes open for life’s lesson. Even at my age, I remain deeply in need of strengthening my behavior and my relations with fellow souls.
For me, life’s lessons are everywhere every day. In the grocery store of life and on the golf course of life, I’ve learned more about the good and the bad of life-living in those places than I’ve learned in Sunday School or parental lectures or graduate school ethics classes. I’ll never, until my dying breath stop trying to recount them and understand them fully.
I had a half-dozen emails responding to the blog in question here. Nearly each of those responses contained heartfelt expressions of gratitude for the way I expressed my little discoveries of that day.
Is it too simple to wonder what it is in the human heart that prevents us from getting along? Is it odd to be amazed that in the world-view of things, our nation is so tiny and brings to the earth’s gigantic buffet only such slight representation while accounting for more than three-quarters of its wealth? Is it not extraordinary to be reminded how insignificant the sickly pale color of my flesh is when placed beside the dazzling color-spectrum chart of people around the globe?
“Oh, no, not more life’s lessons!”
Perhaps, there are some people who don’t need them or reminders of them. I and many of my readers are not among them. God help the people who need such reminders but don’t know it.
“Oh no, not more life’s lessons!”
by Charlie Leck
A while ago I wrote a blog about an experience I’d had in a single day that pounded some of “life’s lesson” into my thick skull. One of our kids reacted to the blog with a sarcastic and cynical remark: “Oh, no, not more life’s lessons.”
That rattled me a bit. I sat around thinking about it for a few hours.
“How vacuous,” I thought. “The comment of someone removed from life’s realities – of someone insensitive to the precarious precipice along which we walk every single day – of someone too self absorbed to see the pronounced weaknesses of the human soul, mind and body.”
Well, that’s over-reaction! Nevertheless, I went back and read that blog and realized I wouldn’t change a word – except for one that I had misspelled.
I still need to keep my eyes open for life’s lesson. Even at my age, I remain deeply in need of strengthening my behavior and my relations with fellow souls.
For me, life’s lessons are everywhere every day. In the grocery store of life and on the golf course of life, I’ve learned more about the good and the bad of life-living in those places than I’ve learned in Sunday School or parental lectures or graduate school ethics classes. I’ll never, until my dying breath stop trying to recount them and understand them fully.
I had a half-dozen emails responding to the blog in question here. Nearly each of those responses contained heartfelt expressions of gratitude for the way I expressed my little discoveries of that day.
The above was the general tone and theme of the comments I received.“charlie, what a wonderful way to spend your day, yesterday... i wish i had been with you... and what a great way for you to share it with us.... thank you...”
"Good stuff, Chas. The picture you draw of the global village [below] is eye-popping and good for us over-stuffed white people to see. Thanks."
Is it too simple to wonder what it is in the human heart that prevents us from getting along? Is it odd to be amazed that in the world-view of things, our nation is so tiny and brings to the earth’s gigantic buffet only such slight representation while accounting for more than three-quarters of its wealth? Is it not extraordinary to be reminded how insignificant the sickly pale color of my flesh is when placed beside the dazzling color-spectrum chart of people around the globe?
“Oh, no, not more life’s lessons!”
Perhaps, there are some people who don’t need them or reminders of them. I and many of my readers are not among them. God help the people who need such reminders but don’t know it.
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