Do something special with your life, especially when it comes to
abandoning your comfort zone.
Why do so many
of us seek to live life so comfortably?
Last week I
heard someone comment on the importance of the poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. This poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which he wrote a hundred years after the fact to encourage the
North during the early part of the Civil War.
It captivated my
imagination, but I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me. Why don’t we feel so dramatically about
freedom nowadays? I guess we just have
gotten too used to the mundane.
So, close your eyes
and imagine what Paul Revere saw and heard that glorious night he rode for
freedom. The poem starts like this….
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm”
For time’s sake
let’s move ahead to the actual midnight ride that Paul Revere made that night,
and take that breath taking ride right along with him…
“It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When be came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,--
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
What really
struck me was the willingness of the rider to risk it all to tell his neighbors
that the enemy was coming. Not to
mention, the obedient horse who galloped as if his life were at stake. Most certainly our nation’s burgeoning
existence lie in the balance because the very next day the British did come to
suppress the Colonists.
Thankfully for
us Paul Revere, and the others that rode with him, were not afraid to put their
life on the line. Even, if I meant
stepping outside their comfort zone as chased the night to do the right
thing.
It is never too late to giddy up with our lives and use them for something
significant.
Swavel
