In my American Lit. class today, we read a couple poems that stood out to me. One was Richard Corey by Edwin Arlington Robinson and the other was George Gray by Edgar Lee Masters. Robinson depicts a man who has everything (the title "Richard Corey" is supposed to remind us of this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England). As you read the poem, a standard forms in your mind that makes you praise and respect Corey as a great man, like he's a king. But in the end, Corey puts a bullet to his head and kills himself. In my last post, I said I have a heart for the elderly and poor, but I also have a sort of sympathy for the rich (which is weird, I know). I think it's devestating to see someone with everything they could ever want, yet have absolutely nothing to treasure after this life. As Mark 8:36-37 says, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?"
That's when you look at Masters' poem, George Gray: a man who regrets not living life when he had the chance. Here's the poem below:
I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me --
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of reslessness and vague desire --
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
When I die, I don't want people to say, "Oh, Becca, the one who was too afraid to do anything" or "Becca, the weak one in everything." I want people to say, "Becca made a difference. She didn't let life's circumstances bring her down. She was brave. She loved so much we all feared her heart might burst with it. But above all, she followed Jesus -- and it showed." I don't mean that in an egotistical way. I just want to leave this life knowing I lived with meaning, unlike the above poem. That way, I can hear my Father's voice tell me, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" when I reach heaven (Matthew 25:23).
I read about when God first sets the rainbow in the sky this morning, signifying his covenant to never flood the earth again (Gen. 9:12-16). So many times you must weep for the earth when You remember all that has happened. But then, after the rain, you set Your beautiful rainbow in the sky and remind Yourself, "No, I will never flood the entire earth again to wipe out mankind. I love my children." Let's be a witness for Christ; His sunshine in the lives of others so they tell themselves, "I want that." As Lord Byron wrote,
"Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray."
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