Life Is Short..!
Even as we hear of bomb blasts and train accidents, and look at the obit column and see familiar faces we realize time is short. I remember the scream that came from a neighbour’s house: The daughter ran upstairs thinking the worst, and saw her mother weeping uncontrollably, hunched over the morning paper, “She’s gone!” cried the old lady, “She’s gone!” And she pointed to the obituary column. “I didn’t even know she was sick! Oh my dearest sister how could you go without telling me? Why did you die before we could make up?”
The daughter looked at the paper and saw the photograph of her aunt, whom her mother had stopped talking to after a bitter fight years ago. She watched her mother weep and then whispered, “I told you ma life is short!”
Many years ago Phillips Brooks talked one Sunday to the people who sat in front of him. Bitter, unbending people who refused to forgive and forget.
“You are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up someday;
“You are keeping wretched quarrels alive because you cannot quite make up your mind that now is the day to sacrifice your pride and kill them;
“You are passing men sullenly on the street, not speaking to them out of some silly spite, and yet knowing that it would fill you with shame and remorse if you heard that one of these men were dead tomorrow morning;
“You are letting your neigbour starve till you hear that he has died of starvation;
“Or letting a friend’s heart ache for a word of appreciation or sympathy which you mean to give him some day;
“If you could only feel and see that ‘life is short’ how it would break the spell. How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have the chance to do!”
After he spoke that Sunday, people who had never spoken to each other in years suddenly smiled and greeted each other, and discovered it was what they’d been wanting to do all along. Neighbours who had disliked and avoided each other walked home together, and were astonished to find how very much they enjoyed doing so.
All at once they felt happier and more content, felt at peace with themselves and the world. The words of Brooks struck a responsive chord in their hearts.
Today I urge you to do the same:
Forget past grievances. Bear with the faults of others even as you would have them bear with yours. Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be petty and unkind. Put down the paper after you’ve read this piece and make a call to someone you haven’t talked to in years..!
Please do give your response to this article in the ‘comments’ section below
