We all have to go sometime. In retirement I think about it more. Not worry about it. Not dread it. But think about how fortunate we are to have whatever number of days with which we are blessed. Life is both long and short. Days drag on while years fly by. I think a lot about the time in my life I have wasted, and it makes me a bit ashamed. I think of missed opportunities and am humbled. I think of what I have accomplished and wonder if it was enough, wish it was more. I look at my son and granddaughter and realize that if I accomplished nothing more than their place on earth I did really well. I’m not in any hurry to leave, but if my number comes up, I am okay with that.

I marvel at our cultural response to the passing of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and even Shelley Fabares, and am overwhelmed by the impact actors and performers have on our lives. Their passing is like losing old friends, and in the case of Dolly Parton, we not only lost a talent but an icon. Yet, for me, the passing this past week that touched me most deeply and made me sad was Wendell Berry. Not only an old friend, but a teacher, an inspiration, a prophet, as well as an icon.

I am an Indiana boy, with some roots in my grandparents’ farm. I had friends from Kentucky that used to refer to Indiana as “Northern Northern Kentucky” because so many Hoosier transplants came from there. Maybe that is why I resonated so deeply with Berry’s Port William tales. But I also loved his essays, and his fundamental grounding in environmental stewardship and love of the land. And his poetry. One Sabbath poem from Berry could do for me what a month of Sundays in church could not. Even in death, Berry made me appreciate life.

We have a relatively short amount of time to live a life. What does it take for us to live it to the fullest? For me, I realize that my life was/is fullest when I live it not for myself, but for others. Certainly, those I love, but I have had such amazing and abundant opportunities to live for people I don’t even know and will never meet. I have been most energized in life when I engaged in ministry of social justice, standing with the poor and marginalized, speaking out on behalf of those so often denied a voice.

The word mortality means “subject to death.” While it is universal and completely inclusive, I choose not to see my existence and being as “subject to death,” but much more aligned with vitality – “subject to life.” Folks, we have been given a gift, but not a gift to hoard or greedily grasp. Our life is measured not by what we receive, but by what we give. Not by how much we are loved, but how much we love. Not by what we can achieve, but by what we can enable and empower. God is so good, and we have many people to be thankful for. Let us strive in every way possible to make more and more people thankful for us through what we think, say, and do to make this world like heaven on earth.