My Eulogy

Strange, but I think it wise to plan ahead for one’s death, so the following is what I would like done and read when I am dead.

- If at all possible, I would like my funeral service held at the graveside of where I will be buried.

- If feasible, I would like the article, BETTER THAN BACON, printed in my funeral bulletin.  It is included for your convenience directly below my name.

- Preferably, I would like my son, Jordan, to read My Eulogy.

MY EULOGY

   :)

We all die someday, best to leave evidence of a life well lived behind us.

To those I have known and loved,

If you are reading and or hearing this, My Eulogy, I am no longer here. To be honest, I’m not surprised.   I knew it was coming, like it is for all of us.   My expiration date has come due and my new address is in Heaven with Jesus. Not of my doing, but all His, woo-hoo for me!

In my honest estimation, there is way too much confusion at funerals. Throughout my lifetime, I have been to my fair share of funerals and have heard plenty of eulogies, where other people say what they think you believe or add in their own ideas.  Then they tend to remember the best about you, true or not, full of much emotion, and perhaps even cry.  Then they leave and eventually as life continues go on about life.  However, for me I think God wants people to know what I was about and I better have been about His business or else I was wasting my time on this planet.

The toughest thing to handle about death tends to be is that it is so final. The following are some profound lyrics written by Steven Curtis Chapman that convey my sentiment regarding my death:  I’ll SEE you in a little while, I’ll SEE you in a little while. It won’t be too long now. We’ll SEE it on the other side, the wait was only a blink of an eye.  So I’m not gonna say goodbye, cause I’ll SEE you in a little while.  No need to worry, I will see you again, if you know Jesus that is and we’ll catch up on things then.

  

To me, our bodies are a lot like a plastic Wal-Mart bag that carries our soul for as long as it can and then sadly wears out.  Paul tells us in the Bible that, we brought nothing into this world & it is certain that we can carry nothing out. When we die we will travel light when we meet our Maker.  Remember, the only thing that ever truly mattered anyway is what we have done with and for Jesus while we were here. 

So, that’s it. If you are interested in other thoughts that God impressed on me feel free to read my blog, PERHAPS.  Most specifically the article called Whoa Moments from April 14^th, 2014. Till we meet again, walk with Jesus, get to know Him and then share Him with everyone you meet.

My eulogy is only a record of what I did with my life and I pray that when God does the editing it will make sense.

Swavel

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Here is what I want in the bulletin

Better Than Bacon

In my final words, I want to impress on you the need to be right with God.

Make sure your exit strategy for eternity is undersigned by Jesus.

A little while ago, my family and I flew into Texas for my son’s graduation.  It was there at the hotel check-in counter I had an epiphany.  As the manager handed my credit card back to me she made mention of complimentary breakfast and then she uttered this profound thought:  bacon on Monday. 

The words hung in the air like I had just won the lottery, because who doesn’t love bacon?  Especially the free kind and nothing would be better than bacon on our last day before a long flight home to Pennsylvania.

Needless to say the bacon was alright, but in many ways it sounded better than it actually tasted.   It got me to thinking that so many of us are living our lives, me included, like how we make and eat bacon, leaving a greasy mess.  Many of my relationships, and how I do things when I do my own thing, leave a lot to be desired.  Consequently, I have left a lot of smudges.

Come to think of it, so many of us are so set on doing our own thing and when we get what we want, like that bacon, we are disappointed.  Simply put, heaven is better than anything we can come up with on our best day, even bacon.

Here is my exit strategy on how to live life, while trying to avoid the smell of the bacon, better known as the cares of this life:

Pursue Jesus so closely that you have to hang on to His shirt tail, so that all you can see is Him.  Similar to when I take off my glasses and wander down the halls at work, while I just keep following the florescent lights overhead.  It never fails; I always end up at one of those bright orange exit signs leading me to the way out.

Truth be told, no one gets out of this life alive: we all die.  Therefore, we all should have an exit strategy when it comes to death, so as to make the most of each precious day we have.

Meeting Jesus is so much better than bacon that you’ll forget it was even an option.

Swavel   

At A Loss

A truly wise person uses few words…  Proverbs 17:27

We live in a chaotic world, to say the least.  Subsequently, we can fight against ourselves, fight amongst ourselves or come to grips with it and do something about it by choosing our words wisely.

Months ago, there were riots in Baltimore, Maryland, that were so dangerous they had to cancel Orioles’ games.  Does this make sense? No. However, I love the video where the one mom is grabbing her son by the arm, while yelling at him to not to join the mob.  While he’s trying to break free and pull his hood up, she’s still speaking a few choice words of wisdom trying to convince him not be such a fool.

Just the other week, there were nine people killed ruthlessly in a church in Charlotte, South Carolina.  Does this make sense?  No. What also doesn’t make complete sense is that because the killer had a hatred for people of a certain race there has been a call to remove the Confederate flag from all public areas.  Initially, I agreed because the Confederate symbol can be seen as somewhat inflammatory.  Nonetheless, the idea of taking the Confederate flag down may be soothing to those it offends, but in reality the flag had nothing to do with the killing of those precious souls.  A demented lost soul was responsible for that despicable act.

History tells us that Hitler and the Nazis, in an unspeakable evil act against mankind, killed over 11 million people during the Holocaust.  Does this make sense?  No.  It does not make sense either that some try to deny it.  I believe this is a phenomenon that some people  have because they haven’t witnessed the event personally with their own eyes of how brutal and cruel  humans can be to one another.  Truth is we live in a sanitized world and can’t even begin to imagine the evil that the Nazis and Hitler unleased on those they hated.  They were trying to take over the world and the mentality was that if you weren’t with them, you were against them. 

Several years ago, I saw proof in a museum there that were people that jumped into Niagara Falls to see it they could survive.  Did this make sense?  No. I once read of an account of one guy who jumped in about 10 years ago.  What he said was not anything revealing except he hit hard and going over the Falls was like being in a giant tunnel, going straight down, surrounded by water . The reason he jumped was he was struggling with depression and it seemed more of a result of one man’s search for 15 minutes of fame, than anything else.  This act of silly foolishness did cause the man to realize that life is worth living.

The truth is sometimes there is no real good answer as to why some people act a a certain way or why some things happen the way they do. Now, by no means am I demeaning anyone who wants answers to many of life’s debilitating questions,   However, sometimes there are just no answers or answers we must wait to get from God Himself.

Quite simply the conclusion I came to is this: God Is God and I am not.  I think the biggest problem I had with God’s way of doing things in the past was he does not have a suggestion box, nor does He take advice from me.  However, the more time passes I have realized it is good God does not consult a flawed human like myself, because I would just screw things up.

For one moment though let’s apply this principle.  What if Noah questioned God’s reasoning and refused to build the ark.  The answer is God was not changing his plan and all of us as we know it would be dead.  And I would not be typing this thought or any other thought for that matter.  Another example is what if Jesus had refused to be born of a virgin, live for 33 years, unjustly be convicted of wrongdoing and die alone.  The answer is I we all would be in a world of hurt and none of us would have hope for Eternity.

The list can go on, but the point is with God you must have faith in Him or else you can just do your own thing.  The reason I don’t do my own thing is I have done nothing to cause my own existence, can do little to guarantee its continued existence and know I have an expiration date,

Being at a loss for words is a lot better option  than wasting your breath trying to explain something that is purely elusive.

Swavel

Connect the Dots

 If you never step outside your comfort zone what you are missing will never come find you.

About four years ago, I was introduced to a language I had heard about but never fully understood how it worked.  The language is Braille and it was created to help the blind read and communicate.  It is one of the most fascinating languages I have ever experienced.  What appears to be a random sequence of bumps, that makes little sense to the untrained eye, is in actuality a six dotted domino, with each cell representing a letter.

This language was created by the remarkable Louis Braille, who to say the least had a rough life.  He was the Steve Jobs of his day, however being an innovator back in his day did not wield him any power or bring him any recognition or profit.  Rather he was disdained for his innovation and brilliant ideas.  He even died in the prime of his life.

 Louis Braille was born in 1809 in Coupvray, France, during Napoleon‘s failed attempt to conquer Europe.  The challenges began early at the age of three, when Louis suffered a devastating eye injury while playing with his father’s saddle making tools.  Subsequently, he lost his eyesight because of the infection that set in and from the primitive treatments of the practitioners of the time whose methods instead of helping did permanent harm.

Despite this setback opportunity knocked at the age of ten when Louis was selected to attend a special blind school in Paris, four hours from his home.  It was there at the age of twelve that he was introduced to night writing or artillery code, a precursor to Braille.  This was a primitive way for the blind to read using dots and dashes that were raised or embossed created by a man named Captain Barbier.  His code of dashes and dots was complicated and clumsy, seeing it used huge cells and needed more than a fingertip to read.  Louis took to this form of communication and at one time met the Captain personally to make some helpful suggestions to make it easier to use.  However, Barbier didn’t take kindly to a blind child’s suggestions and become annoyed refusing to listen to him.

Not one to sulk, at the age of fifteen Louis Braille unveiled a new alphabet in which he created 63 ways to use a six cell dot, where all the symbols fit under the fingertip. This would eventually become known as language we today call Braille.  Louis also worked hard on the Braille music code he wrote while in his twenties.   Also, in his mid-twenties he contracted tuberculosis which most likely came from a poor diet and unhealthy living conditions.

In his mid-thirties people began publicly to call the dot system by his name: Braille.  Sadly, before widespread distinction could reach him,  Louis Braille died at the age of 43 on January 6, 1852.  For a while, due to ignorance mixed with jealously, there were some who tried to ban the use of Braille among the blind, with a big complaint being the Braille dots do not resemble print letters.

Regardless, two years after his death in1854, France adopted Braille as its official communication system for the blind.  Eventually, Louis Braille’s system spread throughout the world and of course still bears his name today   Braille has been adapted to nearly every language on earth and remains the major medium of literacy for blind people everywhere.

So, I guess it just goes to show we must never give up when it comes to helping others to see what really matters.  Thank goodness, Louis Braille didn’t just throw his hands up in disgust and go in sit in a corner and pout. Instead, he showed the world he knew what he was doing. 

Connect the dots is a great reminder that our world only stays complicated if we allow it.

Swavel

**Footnote: I gathered information for this article from this website:  www.brailler.com/braillehx.htm