Positive Ripples
I recently attended a funeral for a person that died very suddenly and unexpectedly. We attended the funeral: a wonderful service with many people there to celebrate his life. What struck me was that in the end there was one collage of pictures, one table of artifacts that were important to him (a guitar, a hat, a water bottle, a hockey stick, etc.), and one hour of recalling the key points of his life with a few stories thrown in. After that, most people who attended, for the most part, moved on with their lives (with those who were closest to him, of course, still grieving).
We sometimes live our lives worrying, fretting, complaining, catastrophizing situations, getting overly upset over issues, what someone said (or didn’t say), our plans, our influence (or lack thereof), our short term and long term plans that happen (or don’t). After all of our lives, our toil, our concerns, our efforts, we all end up with one collage, one table of artifacts, one hour of formal memories. This really bothered me and my spouse wisely said, “All of the good we do, the prayers carried out through us, the evangelizing we do to bring others closer to Jesus, is what lives past that table, that collage, that one hour. That is how we live on with eternal ripples in the world for Christ.” It has reshaped how I look at things (at least for now). I challenge you to live each day to create positive ripples that will live past you and your earthly time. Mother Teresa wisely said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”