One Sweetly Solemn Thought

If you follow me on Facebook, you know I had a very long weekend. My girls' team played in a tournament on Saturday which saw our wonderful season end in sudden death. We played and won twice before losing to a very good team by one point. I tell our kids that sports aren't life and death but we sometimes act like they are. That sentiment was fresh on my mind as I left the gym, hopped into my car, and drove to my Uncle Jack's funeral. It was the third family funeral since the week of Thanksgiving on my mom's side, including Aunt Jerry and Uncle Bill. All my relatives were interred in the same family cemetery outside Nashville, Arkansas where our parents are buried which is also the spot where Mom and Dad were married. Uncle Jack's service was joyous, including a jazz band and a wonderful eulogy by our cousin Marsha who was buried both parents in consecutive months. As soon as the family group pictures were snapped and goodbye hugs were shared, I got back in my Honda Fit for the 360 mile trek back to Houston. I pulled in at 10:30 PM, bleary eyed and eager to sleep. I'm still kind of tired but improving. Sleep cures so many ills!

This entry is not about the funeral- we've all shared our stories with each other on social media and are planning our next reunion in roughly eighteen months. No, this is about something weird that happened as I was only fifteen minutes into my trip. I was getting onto a ramp for US 59 when my GARMIN GPS system suddenly read recalculating. Then, amazingly, it clipped more than an hour off my ETA, from 11:20 PM to 10:06 PM! In the blink of an eye, I was nearer, much nearer, to my final destination than I had imagined! Truthfully, I have no idea why the time shaving happened but I was elated! I was planning on spending a night in a hotel anyway but it would make the driving come Sunday morning much more palatable. I made it one piece and for me, that was what counted.

It didn't take long for me to begin making mental applications to the speeding up of my travel clock. Almost immediately, the old hymn One Sweetly Solemn Thought came to mind. Penned in the 1800's by Phoebe Cary on the subject of our mortality, the last stanza reads:
Feel as if now my feet
Were slipping o'er the brink;
For I may now be nearer home,
Much nearer than I think.
I never thought much of death when I was young. Those three funerals of my two uncles and aunt, each laid to rest in that family plot in Arkansas, have been sobering reminders of the fate of all of the descendants of Adam. But all were in their eighties, deeply loved and respected, the way we believe it should come to pass. Two nights ago, however, I learned via Facebook of the tragic death of a former student, still in his thirties. It was too soon, way too soon, I thought. He should have had forty, fifty more birthdays down here. This morning, I heard students in the hall predicting we would have a fire drill today and they were correct, We are required to have one per month and today was the last day of January. They would be absolutely stunned if we duplicated the drill tomorrow. They erroneously believe it has to be at the end of the month because it always is. You know, there are always exceptions and it could happen. I won't wake up in the morning thinking, to quote Don McLean who was roughly quoting Buddy Holly, 'This'll be the day that I die.' But it could be. Phoebe Cary was almost  prophetic- she died in her forties of hepatitis. I've made it past that milestone but there are no guarantees. I don't have a built in GPS alerting me to my ETA to eternity. Maybe I have one more day or one more decade or one more quarter century but I can't live holding my breath. Better that I should be ready every minute of every day.

Applicable quote of the day:

It finally happened. I got the GPS lady so confused, she said, "In one-quarter mile, make a legal stop and ask directions."
Robert Breault
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com