What do you “cherish” most?

In times like these I get to thinking. I wonder what it is that people cherish most in life. Is it their car or jewelry?  Maybe it’s their spouse or children? How about that beach front house you built? What exactly is it that people cherish most in life?

Happy Easter! To most of us, Easter is about family, especially children. Setting out the plastic eggs filled with money and candy for our children to find while we sit and watch in joy as they find those little jewels of happiness. For adults it’s about getting together and celebrating. Big meals, wine, fancy desserts and sports on television.  But for most of us, we forget the true meaning of Easter and why we really should be celebrating this day.

Today, as I stood by myself in church, I noticed that most of the people in attendance were of the gray haired variety. I thought to myself how sad it is that we need to reach our golden years before we give religion a place in our lives. How we as adults are so busy with life that we can’t find the time to give thanks for what we have accomplished.

I am ashamed to admit that I don’t find enough time in my life to give thanks to God for all I have and for the people in my life that make it so special. I am too caught up in just trying to make it through each day, pay the bills and try to get enough sleep to start all over again tomorrow.  The only difference, I think, that separates me from most of my peers, is that I recognize how sad it has become that we are all forgetting we were put here for a greater reason than earning a living.

Money, as you might not realize, has become our God of worship. We scurry around all our lives trying to find ways to earn enough money to garner the things we “cherish”. While this is happening we are allowing time to slip by and our life to fade to almost a blip on the screen. Not only do we forget God and religion, but we don’t even see the everyday beauty in life itself that surrounds us everywhere we are.

I thought about what I cherish most and I first thought of my wife, but then I took a minute to think about it. What I thought of was how lucky I was to be alive today. How seeing all these people in church made me think about our greater reason for being here and that I wished I could find a way to help make the people around me stop and rethink why they are alive. How I wished I could take stage like our President and instead of spewing garbage, tell everyone to take back their lives and focus on peace and understanding, not fighting and gluttony. Yes gluttony. We are all guilty of it. The bigger televisions, the fancier phones that we hardly use to call people from, the cars that cost more than homes.

I have always felt that I would have been better served to be born in the forties or fifties if only for its simpler times. Today with all our technology that’s supposed to do us a world of good, we have become slaves to it. Even when we spend time together socially we allow our phones to interrupt us and become what is more important than the people we are with. It is sickening what we have become.

Life is fleeting, life is also very scary, life is fragile, and life is short. Now that I am on the back side of my expected life span, I can see that more clearly. What scares me though is that I cannot find a way to change it without upsetting the balance of family and self in my life.

So as I conclude this post I think that I have taken one good thing from this day. I woke up this morning, kissed my wife and went to church to thank God for all I have. To tell him, I know you are there and I think of you often. To apologize for not being the best person I could be and to promise to try harder to spread his word. I prayed that we as a people would wake up collectively and realize how precious life is and find a way to “fix” this world before it was too late.  I know, what I “cherish “most. I cherish my life and the God that gave it to me.

Peace be with you all

The Regular Guy