memento mori
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
Likely you’ve heard or read those words. They are the closing lines of a famous Mary Oliver poem. I’ve seen them all over social media, tacked onto bulletin boards, and engraved on bracelets.
What I rarely see are answers to the question.
Here’s one: Become a person of prayer.
This answer was proposed to me by a Trappist monk, Brother Christian Leblanc.
I met Brother Christian in 2012 in Kentucky at the Abbey of Gethsemane and recently found my notes.
He would change the last lines of Mary Oliver’s poem to
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your allotted time?”
How much time each of us has to become “a person of prayer” the good monk pointed out, is unknown, but it’s that space between when we are called into being by God and called back to God.
Memento mori.
Liked the hand written timeline. I subscribe to the hope in St. Peter's statement that God will give you the time you need to get things right if you're trying. I figure under this formula I won't hit middle age until I'm 400 years old.