Some day, a preacher will stand before a few people and say nice things about me.
Depending on when this occurs, the preacher may not know me very well and have no choice but to sprinkle generic platitudes in his eulogy. Not that it really matters.
Consider this quote from M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans:
“Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.”
A bit too gloomy?
That’s not my intent.
My wife is not a regular reader of this blog. She’ll log on every now and then and see what I’ve done. She took a look several months ago and was surprised at how much I had written. “You certainly have a lot to say,” she said.
Maybe.
But why all the words? Why do I do it?
I started because everyone was saying that to be a successful writer, you need a platform, a way for readers to get to know you and your work. I guess I still hope for that, but as time goes on, I find myself expressing things that no one really cares about but me. Yeah, it feels good when something I do connects with other people, but that’s becoming less important. Maybe it’s an age thing, maturity making itself known after sixty years.
I subscribe to more than seventy blogs, though most are inactive, so it’s not as daunting as it sounds. There are a dozen or so that I look forward to reading, and as I do, I get to know the people behind the blogs. Some are writers, some are poets, some are photographers, some are artists. I don’t always comment on their work. I don’t always Like. (Which doesn’t mean I don’t like it, but if you Like everything, you devalue the Like itself.) Most of my blogger friends will not find fame and fortune, despite their wonderful work. But several times a day, they make my life a little better by what they do.
If I can do that every now and then for someone, that’ll be icing on the cake. Even if I don’t, there’s something about being creative and having the nerve to put it out for others to see that is fulfilling. Like maybe there’s evidence of a life lived in the pursuit of purpose and meaning. Evidence that may endure after the last visit to my headstone. That would be good.
And who knows, maybe the preacher will find something to use.
photography copyright 2016, joseph e bird
Joseph E Bird 
September 11, 2016 at 10:35 pm
Ha! Well, I often enjoy your words. 🙂
Not long ago a pastor I knew spoke about being called in to do a funeral for someone he barely knew and how he would often find our bibles covered in dust and cobwebs, buried somewhere among the old soda cans and candy wrappers. He was funny, he said, “would you all mind maybe opening that book once in a while, perhaps high lighting a verse or two, so I can have some idea of who and what you were?”
It cracked me up. Also, it motivated me to clean up my desk.
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September 12, 2016 at 7:41 am
Thanks, IB. My bible is full of scraps of paper with cryptic notes even I can’t understand. Someone would have to play a word association game to find some kind of meaning. BTW, I really appreciate your words and your sense of humor.
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