LONG LIFE OR GREAT LIFE
12/02/2010 9:33 AMI have two questions for all of the faithful readers to this blog. First: If given a choice, would you prefer to live a long life... or a shorter, yet a greater life? Secondly: What is the shortest distance between two points?
Those questions might seem unrelated, yet, I hope to show that, at least for the topic of this blog, they are intrinsically tied together.
I'm going to write briefly about Einstein, though certainly a lost reprobate... I still enjoy reading about some of his more famous theories. One of them that I like was his “special theory of relativity.” In part he stated that time was really an illusion and only a way for man to mark his days. (This part has nothing to do with today's blog, but I partly agree with that assessment, but I do it based on the Bible. God lives in a timeless eternity and I believe that “time” was created and only exists for mankind and will cease to exist after the White Throne Judgement and all of the redeemed will then live with God in His timeless eternity.)
Now, this part is important... if time is an illusion (as Einstein thought) and relative only to the perspective of an observer, then time really does not move forward, it actually stands still: therefore, plants, animal, people, etc. do not “grow older,” they simply decay!
So, the next time you look in the mirror and you see that those laugh lines which used to disappear after your laughter ended... are now etched into your face, (sort of like the stone carvings on Rushmore) take heart... you are not growing older: you are simply decaying! Now, doesn't that make you feel better?
Before you totally dismiss the idea of time being illusory... and different for everyone depending upon their own perspective, let me give you just two examples:
You are in the chair of a dentist and he is doing root-canal... does not 30 minutes seem like two hours? You are watching a movie while holding hands with the one you love... does not two hours seem like 30 minutes?
You are at work and doing a job you hate... does not one hour seem like five? You are at a cook-out with great friends... does not five hours seem like one?
Time, even as beauty... is (apparently) only in the eye of the beholder. Several years ago I read of a contest where you could win a trip to a particular spot in England from a particular starting point in America, simply by telling them the shortest distance that it was possible to travel from point “A” to point “B.”
Thousands of people entered this contest. Many of them had done elaborate work with charts, graphs, and many other ways of computing miles traveled. And the winner... did none of that, they simply wrote one line. “The shortest distance between any two points is to travel in the company of the one you love.”
There you have it, and the point of today's blog. It is my belief that you could have two people who lived the exact number of years down to the very second they drew their last breath on Earth: yet, one lived a “long life of 80 years,” while the other lived a much “shorter life of 80 years.” It is because the first octogenarian lived his 80 years not in the company of the one they loved... and the other octogenarian lived the shorter life of 80 years: albeit the greater life... simply because of the company they kept.
You can always email me at clarkmatthews1@aol.com
posted by Robin Johnson @ 9:33 AM
