I don’t want to be overly morbid, but with Memorial Day here, and many of us visiting the cemetery and praying for loved ones who have died, I thought it wouldn’t be too far from center to ask everyone, me included, “Who promised you tomorrow?”

Count to 3.  Seriously – 1, 2, 3…  In that time, across the world, five people have died.  And I’m not making that number up.  The number of people that die each year is approximately 58 million, and if you do the math, that means almost two people die every second of every day.

By the time you’ve read this far, another 30 people have died.

Yet, here we are.  Taking so much for granted, believing that someday we’ll get to everything on our list, and later make time for the important things.  And instead, we spend our time on the urgent things.  Work, and work, and the children, and more work.  It’s our duty of state, after all, and once we get everything nicely in place, then, yes then we’ll make time for the important things.

I watched a short documentary a few years ago called ‘BoatLift’ about the people who rushed to lower Manhattan on 9/11 and helped with the evacuation of 500,000 people.  Near the end, one of the boat owners said this:

“I have one theory in life I never want to say the words ‘I should have’”.

more “Remember the Sunrise”

This is from the Ballad of the White Horse:

And this was the might of Alfred, At the ending of the way;

That of such smiters, wise or wild, He was least distant from the child, Piling the stones all day.

For Eldred fought like a frank hunter That killeth and goeth home;

And Mark had fought because all arms Rang like the name of Rome. 

And Colan fought with a double mind, Moody and madly gay;

But Alfred fought as gravely As a good child at play.

He saw wheels break and work run back And all things as they were;

And his heart was orbed like victory And simple like despair.

Therefore is Mark forgotten, That was wise with his tongue and brave;

And the cairn over Colan crumbled, And the cross on Eldred’s grave.

Their great souls went on a wind away, And they have not tale or tomb;

And Alfred born in Wantage Rules England till the doom.

And as a child whose bricks fall down Re-piles them o’er and o’er, Came ruin and the rain that burns, Returning as a wheel returns,

And crouching in the furze and ferns He began his life once more.

That made sense, right?  Or, maybe a little more explanation is needed?

more “Begin Again”