Chapter the Twenty-Third

The greatest thing that has happened to me up to date in my life...I believe that would be a thesis for a dissertation or something. THe question was asked by someone, who I believe to be my Dad, and then the sentiment returned by another friend. So I will at length unveil the greatest happening in my life up to date.
It started last year at about 7 p.m. on the 16th of September 2004. Most of you know if from talking to me about my year in Florida. The greatest thing to happen to me was not Hurricane Ivan but the several changes of attitude and philosophy toward religion and life that happened in me during the course of the hurricane as well as after it had passed. Zee First Epiphany I guess you could call it occured even before the hurricane really started to blow. Pastor Linck and I were out and about the Wednesday that the hurricane came onto land. There were a few people in the congregatoin that had not had the opportunity to board up some of the windows on their homes. This truly was foreign to me for a time, putting others ahead of self, especially in the area of self preservation. My attitude toward helping others, prior to this time, was similar to the attitude you are supposed to have when administering the oxygen masks on a plane, or at least how you are instructed to. First put your mask on and then help those around you. When I would think about this operating system and how it applied to my service in the church and came to the conclusion at this moment in time, that if I wanted to continue service in the church this philosophy would have to change, and so it did. How can I serve people if there needs are secondary on my list, how can I be a servant if I cannot first deny myself?
Following closely on the heals of this ground breaker was another wonderful but not totally foreign conclusion. I would have to accept my own mortality, IN FULL, to also be able to serve better. I have thought greatly and at long length about life and death and the impact of both on the physical and mental well being of myself. It comes to reason that when any person is deeply in thought about death and in converse life they are going to swing in mental and physical health toward the topic of thought. WHen one is deeply in thought about death, and the ways to die, and what happens in death, you become depressed, and in converse relation when the topic of thought is life, you seem to have a surge of enegry and happiness.
As I sat listening to what could have been death surround me. I had to fully let go of what I thought was a certain life, and accept the reality of certain death. There is one certainty that all of humanity can accept, Death. All humanity will legitimatly accept the fact that they will die, and when asked the same question about life, "Will you live?" there might be a puzzled look, and a hesitant "yyeeessss?" This was certainly me prior to sitting through what could have been death. For certain now I will say and do say, I will live, for the only certainy that matters to me now, Love.

As for the rest it will wait...

Just going...