What will you leave behind?
MLet us remember that the people who are mourned are the people who loved others and cared about more than themselves.
any of you have read about the history of the Nobel Prizes. I am always fascinated by the story and use it to remind myself of how I should attempt to live each day, and how important it is to use the time given on earth in a way that will bless our Creator as well as others.
When Alfred B. Nobel’s brother died, it is reported that one newspaper mistook which brother had died and assumed that it was Alfred. The reporter wrote a prizewinning obituary for Alfred. He was given all the props possible. When Alfred saw the obituary and realized that he was not dead, happy was he. But he was hurt to the core when he read that he would be remembered as the man who invented a weapon capable of killing more people at one time than ever before.
Alfred was not pleased at all; it has been stated by some of his associates that he was horrified. He did not want to be remembered as the man who created dynamite and high explosives. He thought about it for a while and, being the brilliant man that he was, he came up with a way to change what he would be remembered by.
He decided to give sets of prizes in several areas for outstanding achievements. He started the Nobel Prize giving-back during the 1800s, and we are still seeing that practice carried out. His fortune was made by selling items of destruction. He thought that giving prizes annually would soften the blow, and it did. When people receive Nobel Prizes for improvements in science, medicine, literature, and certainly peace, they forget that the man responsible for the reward was also known for creating a weapon of mass destruction.
Many of us are not given the opportunity to read our obituary before leaving from this side of the sun. Yet, if we realize that we are only on this side for a short time, we may see that each day we are writing our obituary, and others are reading it as we write.
Alfred Nobel was not the only one who made a change in his way of living and thinking about life and the importance of considering others. Many of us make changes all the time about how we live and how we treat each other. This is just my opinion but I do not see evidence of enough of us doing so, which is not a good thing for democracy.
Many of us ask what is causing our young people to be filled with rage. My answer is, they are following the examples set before them by us adults as we write our obituaries. I ask the question, is fear causing rage or is the rage causing the fear? We have a creator who has told us that we should fear not because he is with us. He has asked that we give our best to life and those around us, and he would do the rest. He said for us to “Stop striving and know that I am God.” Psalms:46:10
Stop for a minute and “center down.” While in that still place, listen to what you hear and hear what you are listening to, coming out of the mouths of many church leaders. What are we hearing from the mouths of politicians in low and high places? Listen to the choice of words that are coming from very dark places. Listen and watch how we are standing flatfooted and just lying.
We make up lies as we go and think nothing about doing it. We are fighting each other and, in some cases, we have forgotten why. We are showing rage toward people who do not look like us. We are trying to send everybody back to where they came from when we have not packed our bags to make our return. Several days ago, one lady out of anger said to me “You need to go back to Africa.” I said, “Ma’am why are you all always trying to send us back to where you believe we came from?” She did not answer me — not out of shame but ignorance.
In 1492 when immigrants came here to find inhabitants, these same outraged people misused and abused the Native Americans. Those Native Americans should have told the invaders to go back to where they came from. They did not do that. The Indians received them as friends.
We all have time now to change what we are writing in our obituary. Using the writing process to edit our obituary; we can delete, rearrange, and add truth where we may have lies.
Let us remember that the people who are mourned are the people who loved others and cared about more than themselves. They were people you could count on to not take the road of least resistance. Usually, they are people who are humble enough to respect the highest mountains and feel small when they come near the ocean.