Friday, June 23, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
If I had to do it over again
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.
Give up childish things, like avarice, envy and jealousy. Be temperate in buying insurance. Spend less than you could on your home, your lifestyle, and yourself. Give and it will be given to you.
Find ways to play, every day. Watch out for creeping serious, crawling up your leg, looking to grab something important. Be child-like, but not childish.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Brother Jeremiah, a monk, wrote a tellingly wistful obituary for himself. In Chicken Soup for the Soul, Miss Nadine Stair, age 85, echoed and added to his words:
If I had my life to live over again, I would try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax.
I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have ever been on this trip.
I know very few things that I would take seriously next time around.
I would take more chances and take more trips.
I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets.
I would do more walking and more looking.
I’d eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I am one of these people who lived sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. I have been one of those people who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, aspirin and a parachute.
Oh, I have had my moments. If I had it to do over again, I would have more of them.
In fact, I would try to have nothing else, just moments, one after the other, instead of living so many years ahead each day.
If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way till later in the fall.
If I had it to do it over again, I would travel lighter next time. I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.
If I had to do it over again …
I think to myself, “How much of this is still available to me?” And then I answer, “A whole lot!” I can eat ice cream and skip the beans. I can go to the mall in Champaign and ride the merry-go-round, and I just might do that! I can make more mistakes. I can relax. And I can surely be a little more silly.
I hope to visit my Aunt Vera later today. She is older than Miss Nadine. Of course on the other hand she will continue to be thirty-nine for quite some time yet. And she has always been a picker of daisies, many of which she planted herself.
She often reads these devotions, and I hope she reads this one. Lately she has been writing out memories for her son and for all her family. She might let me read a couple of those.
And you know what? There’s a new Mexican restaurant down the street she hasn’t tried yet.
We might just end up there.
(2 Corinthians 11, Psalm 34, Matthew 5-6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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