To Live For



This morning as I felt the cool and brisk air a thrill of energy flooded my being. I felt alive.  I experienced a momentary complete connection with everything around me. In  that instant I perceived a mutual purpose for good and an inspiration to strive for the day to work with that purpose rather than toil for some immediate wish.

Yet I find that the demands of daily living throw up obstacles to that idyllic state. I feel like the dogs in "Up" and somebody just yelled "Squirrel!" So today I considered the reasons for my living and I hope to share these three.  

I live for liberty.
I live for learning.
I live for love.

An ultimate sacrifice
History is made when people die for the things they hold most dear.  Those soldiers, heroes and martyrs inspire those who remain to cherish and enjoy the ideals and the hopes for which they died.  How blessed I am to live in a place where a voluntary military chooses to place their very lives in harms way so that I might live.  Is it not true that when I vote, debate, propose and pursue that I honor the very lives lost in the cause of liberty? For those who have died, I pledge to live for that liberty they gave.

Because freedom without purpose would seem aimless and lacking value I choose to live for learning.  The ignorant pig my wallow in the mud without a care in the world.  But knowledge brings choice, progress and joy.  Is it simply self evident that freedom brings choice? Without freedom another selects your path.  With knowledge we can consider a different path.  I am the first to admit that I have followed several paths right into dead ends; occasionally even knowing the limitations from the start.

Those very experiences, the good and the bad, promote the very progress that learning brings.  When we fail we can learn, often more than when we succeed.  Perhaps this stems from our self-congratulatory tendencies in victory and our disposition to blame in failure.  But step by step, and sometimes just in retrospect, we find joy in the fortunes we have forged. And because of that joy I will always choose to learn.

Dare I say that the exquisite happiness from our liberty and love would amount to naught if not for love.  I love the land in which I live and that love grows reciprocally. This place provides me the freedom and choice to live, learn and grow.  When I take advantage of that choice I make it more free, with greater choice and endless hope.

So I live for love.  I take that liberty and all that I've learned and I love.  I love my wife and my children.  I love my friends.  I love my community.   I love my nation.  I love this world.  For all of this I live.

This morning I rejoice for the blast of cold chilled air that helped my  awake and live.



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