Celebrate the Temporary

Sorting through the stacks of stuff, the over-bulging files, the scribbled notes, the dogeared pages on my messy desk, these two illustrations caught my eye and my fancy. We hope they speak to you today, Just for Sunday, October 30, 2011.

Celebrate the Temporary: Clyde Reid

“Celebrate the temporary. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Live today. Celebrate the simple things. Enjoy the butterfly. Embrace the snow. Run with the ocean. Delight in the trees, or a single lonely flower. Go barefoot in the grass. Don’t wait until all the problems are solved or all the bills are paid. You will wait forever. Eternity will come and go and you will still be waiting. Live in the now with all its problems and its agonies. With its joys and its pain. Celebrate your pain, your despair, your anger. It means you’re alive. Look closer, breathe deeper, stand taller. Stop grieving the past. There is joy and beauty today. It is temporary. Here now and gone, so celebrate it while you can. Celebrate the temporary.”

Life is Too Short

From a sermon preached by Doris Longacre at the Akron Ohio Mennonite Church, April 30 1978.

“Time seems to be the greatest enemy that we have. We can never do all the things that we want to do. We must decide on our own set of priorities. Life is too short to ice cakes. Cakes are good without icing. Life is too short not to write regularly to your parents. Life is too short to eat factory baked bread. Life is too short to keep all your floors shiny. It too short to let a day pass without hugging someone…and especially all your children. Life is too short to nurse grudges and hurt feelings. It’s too short to worry about getting ready for Christmas. Just let Christmas come. Life is too short to spend much money on neckties and earrings. It’s too short not to take a nap when you need one. It’s too short to give importance to whether purses match shoes, or towels match bathrooms. It’s too short to stay indoors when the trees turn color in Fall, when it snows, or when the spring blossoms come out. It’s too short for bedspreads that are too fancy to sleep under. Life is too short to work in a room without windows. Life is too short to put off Bible study. It’s too short to put off improving our relationships with the people we live with.”

Doris was to die not long thereafter.