Time

From that moment in 1963 when the school principal stepped into our seventh grade classroom. . . informing us of the assassination of President Kennedy, the tragedy of this life has lingered in the back of my mind. . .

Our generation was insulated from real danger; we didn’t have to be shipped off to Europe, like many of our fathers did, to rid the world of nazi destruction, death and holocaust.

Even so, the paranoia of our leaders re communist aggression provoked an over-reaction. So. . . many of us were shipped off to Vietnam to stop the communist insurgency. Eventually, our leaders decided that the effort was a waste of time, equipment and American lives.

Long ago, the Psalmist left this observation: “The nations have fallen into a pit of their making; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.”

Things haven’t really changed much, except for the invention of the nuclear bomb. . . ‘nuff said about that. Be careful, all ye world leaders! Don’t do anything stupid.

But I digress. On a brighter note, we know that this American experiment, lit up in 1776. has worked out very well for US for 250 years.

Even so, there are tragedies that happen as we traipse through our history. . . lives lost in the Revolutionary war. . .slaves abused and slain before being emancipated by President Lincoln. . . lives lost in a civil war, lives lost as settlers moved westward, making war on native tribes, lives lost in world war one, lives lost in world war two, Korean war, Vietnam war, skirmishes during the cold war, even some Americans caught up in opposing war, desert storm, Afghanistan. . .

And then there’s the toll taken by Time itself. We all have but one life to live on this earth.

People are dying every day. . . in hospitals, in nursing homes, in accidents and. . . God only knows. . . Some of us know when our time on earth is ending, maybe if we’re laid up in a hospital bed with an advanced age, a mortal disease or injury. For others, the big chill happens when we least expect it, in an accident. . .

One way or the other, it will happen to all of us. An ancient wise man wrote, while praying to the Creator, the Lord and Giver of Life. . . “Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with You, (Oh Lord) You have set limits that he cannot exceed” . . .

Like this tree, we sprout up, into a world of sunlight and fresh air, surrounded by other trees and critters, until, after fifty. . . or seventy years, the weak spots become holes in the plans that we made; meanwhile, all around us, the forest prospers. Birds sing, creatures traipse around us, even into us, exploring our inner parts for shelter. All around us the forest prospers, going on and on. We see our ancestors buried in the ground. . . leaves on the forest floor, turning into soil, turning into food for new saplings, and then. . . Time waits for no man. A bright mushroom pops up to add color to the dark forest floor. We won’t live to see it, but the other inhabitants of the forest will. Life goes on, and Time. . .

Glass half-Full