Topic: Spirituality
I attended the funeral of a relative yesterday and the Minister mentioned the "dash" between the year she was born and the year that she died. He went on to talk about her life and I stashed that little bit of wisdom away for a future discussion on spirituality.
Spirituality is about knowing that you have been put on this earth with special gifts to be discovered and used, to build an awareness and to benefit all. This process of discovery and of using our gifts all takes place in our "dash".
Our hyphen is now. The time between our physical birth and death is now. Today, this now, this moment is when we do our living. Are we making the most of it?
If you look at the dates of a lifetime it looks something like this: 1920-1990. The hyphen is such a small part of the story. It is a very tiny symbol for the life that was lived. Is this because there was so much more before and after? Is it because that the beginning and end is what life is all about, as we are born not knowing, and end with all that we have discovered along our way?
I think of Steven Covey's task to help people create a mission statement for themselves: picture yourself at your funeral; what do you want family, friends, and co-workers say about you? These messages that are typically presented at funerals talk about the person's "Self", about their special gifts that they were given. These messages are also, I think, an indication of how well the individual was able to achieve Self-awareness and was able to live true to Self.
All this, the learning, the growing, the living, the creating of the epitath, take place during the hyphen. How does your hyphen look so far?
-Debbie Life Unfolding
