Carpe Diem: Lean In. Listen. Love One Another

"Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils.

But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you.

Go on, lean in.

Listen, you hear it?— Carpe— hear it?— Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys,

make your lives extraordinary."

{Robin Williams, Dead Poet's Society}

"You heard it here first. Robin Williams is dead." a baseball mom yells out. "Apparently, suicide, they say." She hollers as our sons and daughters hit balls and run bases. I catch my breath.

At the first murmur of the news from a mom who checked her Facebook while her son sat on the bench, there was a hushed gasp. Then this outrageous announcement, that someone who gave so much laughter could possibly take his own life.

I sink back into my navy-blue, worn camping chair, while everyone shouts out their favourite movies starring the man who made the screen and stage come alive with side-splitting humour and heart-rending dramas.

My favourite: 'Dead Poet's Society', but I keep the thought to myself. 

He brought laughter and tears to so many faces, but his own heart was searching for deep happiness and it had lost its way.

He left a legacy.

He made his life extraordinary.

He was capable of great things and accomplished much. More than his one iota.

His heart still needed more.

The word for today may be, "Carpe Diem", but what on earth does it really mean?  Literally, yes, in Latin, in means, "seize the day" but what about in life?

How does one in deep sadness and hopelessness, really seize the day when they just want the pain and the day to end?

Today, I don't have the answers, but I'm asking the tough questions.

The world is spinning too crazy today. It appears that all is going to spin right out of control. Hearts are breaking, breath is expiring, humans are being ravaged by war, desperate souls are ending their own lives.

Seize the day? Seriously? 

This day? Seize it for what? More heartbreak? More despair? More inner groaning? People want the pain to end, not to hold on to it.

If laughter and money and family and fame and freedom isn't enough, what in the world can make life extraordinary enough to keep you from thinking that becoming fertilizer is better than seizing the day?

Where is the joy? What about justice? Grace? And hope for those who want to hang themselves?

I need to seize the day, the moment, the pain to pay attention to what is really going on in the world.

Lean in. Closer.

Cause in this world that is reeling as it spins, there is a God.

A God who sees what we don't. 

A God who knows what the answer to the questions is. He gave us the answer, but we keep refusing to seize it. 

A God who loves. He demonstrated so great a love so that we can know the deep joy to cure the deep sorrow in our hearts. We keep turning a blind eye to this love until one day it's too late.

I don't want to wait till it's too late to lean in and listen. To figure out that I need to listen to the hearts of those around me and answer with Love. It's love that makes lives extraordinary. Love that mends hearts and allows the hard questions and deep sorrows.

It's time to be brave enough to ask the hard questions. It's time to be bold enough to love the hurting, the lonely, the depressed.

It's time to listen to those whose laughter is revealing a deep pain down into the heart of the person. I can't wait till it's too late to listen to the laughter of those who so desperately need love.

There is a whisper of something in the world that we need to be able to really seize the day in life.

I can't do this in my own strength, by my own power or will, with any special formula, or best-laid plan, or man-made evangelical strategy. What we need is a God-given love.

It's not in the harsh-hollering. It's the love-listening. Listening to hurt-reeling hearts of humans longing to be made whole and allowing the overflowing of God's love in my heart to spill over to theirs.

Love brings real joy. Love makes lives extraordinary. Lean in. Listen. Don't miss it.

Carpe Diem. The key to do this is Lean in. Listen. Love one another.



(A Second post for today; asking tough questions, leaning in, listening, and praying for love to fill my heart while my own heart hurts and reels for a world that desperately needs love.)