One Saint
  • Home
  • Jesus Said
    • Matthew
    • Mark
    • Luke
    • John
    • Acts
    • I Corinthians
    • II Corinthians
    • Revelation
  • One Saint Blogs
    • Eschatology
    • Annie
    • All Saints
    • One Saint
    • David
    • Askakido
  • The Persecuted Church
    • Prayer
    • Crown of Life
  • Library
  • MP3s
    • Mystery Babylon
    • Pastors, Ministers and Priests
    • Run from the Devil
    • Miscellaneous Teachings
  • Music
    • Music of Heaven
    • Handel's Messiah
    • Miscellaneous Music >
      • Musical Library XXIII
      • Musical Library XXII
      • Musical Library XXI
      • Musical Library XX
      • Musical Library XIX
      • Musical Library XVIII
      • Musical Library XVII
      • Musical Library XVI
      • Musical Library XV
      • Musical Library XIV
      • Musical Library XIII
      • Musical Library XII
      • Musical Library XI
      • Musical Library X
      • Musical Library IX
      • Musical Library VIII
      • Musical Library VII
      • Musical Library VI
      • Musical Library V
      • Musical Library IV
      • Musical Library III
      • Musical Library II
      • Musical Library I
  • Video
    • DR S M Lockridge, Full Sermon
    • Enoch
    • Genesis
    • Gospel Of Luke
    • Greatest Biblical Archaeological Discoveries Of All Time
    • King Solomon
    • Leonard Ravenhill
    • One Saint
    • Paul, The Apostle
    • Rabbi Jonathan Cahn
    • Revelation, The Book
    • Roger Morneau
    • Ruth
    • Sermon On The Mount
    • That's My King!
    • The Bride, The Beast & Babylon
    • The Jesus Movie
  • Links

Anna Quindlen Tells Us to Get a Life!

9/24/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Thank you, Katy, for sharing Anna's wonderful piece with One Saint:


Get a Life
by Anna Quindlen

A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck,  the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom, Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a full moon  hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night.

And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers, and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live.

I learned to live may years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me that changed my life in ways  that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this:

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a real life, a full life, a professional life, yes, but another life too, a life of love and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your ears and eyes open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. Remember, no one ever said on his deathbed "I wish I had spent more time at the office."

I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from police amidst the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now, even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers, after he read them.  And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn't he check himself into the hospital for detox?

And he just stared at the ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."

And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today. Words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed.

Follow this link to read more about Anna Quindlen...

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    All Saints Blog

    Picture
    This is where you will find a collection of writing by our favorite authors: 
    friends, family and contributors!

    Please email the webmaster
    if you are interested in writing for one saint!

    We accept guest articles, opinions, and suggestions for any public domain work that serves
    the Lord, Jesus Christ.

    Please submit articles and suggestions for publication to
    webmaster@onesaint.org.  

    Upon approval, you will
    see your work here at the All Saints Blog, with credit given to your name.  Thank you so much
    for helping us to build onesaint.org!


    Share



    email the webmaster

    RSS Feed


    Archives

    November 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013