The older I get, the more aware I am of the privilege of long life. So many have perished at a much earlier age than my 74 laps around the sun. Many of the young kids I taught as a public school educator are now long in their graves.
Yet, here I am this morning reflecting on my life experience as a dad with an adult daughter now on her own as leader in our community. The privilege of observing my grandkids now in their seventh and eighth year, parents who lived into their 90's, my Dad still around at 96!
Almost 50 years of marriage, the two of us living relatively different lives, each in our own meaningful way while under the same roof, in fact now in six different homes, all with special stories and blessings unique.
Decades of devotional moments, surely hundreds of books read, throw in three degrees and service in five different life sectors! Wow, so much privilege.
Yet I am troubled for a world at war again with a tyrant so similar to the one who caused such great misery in the life of folks such as Etty Hillesum, who's letters I sit reading this morning.
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”— Etty Hillesum
God have mercy on humanity and upon myself, one so blessed!