Thinking Inside the Box

Thinking Inside the Box

                        The other day I found an old box full of stuff we’d packed away before our last move, two-and-a-half years ago. It had been stacked beside my desk all that time and I picked it up and started to throw it way, unopened. I thought to myself, “If you haven’t needed anything in there for this long, it’s probably not worth saving.” But curiosity got the best of me and I sat down with the box and opened it. There, just as I had haphazardly put them in as moving day approached, were all the items I’d almost pitched. There were some pens and pencils…no great find. There were a few faded receipts which I have no idea why I saved. Then a few other odds and ends with a total value of maybe ten cents.

            But then as I got past the top layer or worthlessness I uncovered a pocket knife. I haven’t owned a pocket knife since I was a young lad. This wasn’t my pocket knife; it had belonged to my father when he was a boy. I found it in his desk after he passed away. I took the knife from the box and gently stroked it as though it somehow connected me to my dad. He had touched that very knife, whittled twigs and sticks with it in the hills of Harlan County, Kentucky. I could almost see him in front of me, a toe-headed youngster in plain bib-overalls, making a little wooden toy for his younger brothers.

            A tear formed in the corner of my moist eye. The tear was not because I missed my dad, although not a day goes by when he doesn’t enter my thoughts. No, the tear was because I came so dangerously close to throwing away the connection, the umbilical cord with my past, my heritage, my flesh and blood. In a rush to make room for something new, to eliminate what looked like a box of nothingness, I had almost burned one of the bridges to my past. A bridge which could never have been replaced, re-purchased or recovered.

            I do wonder sometimes if we are not too quick to let go of the past, the memories, the connections to those whose shoulders we stand upon. I know; time marches on…the future is now…the glory days are gone. All true. But the boxes…the boxes are not gone, not yet, not all of them. There are still precious memories, packed inside, waiting to be well…rediscovered. If the box has trash in it…throw it away, but dig carefully, look for pocket knives. And when you find them, hold them, smell them, close your eyes and let them take you to a place inside the box, where we are still connected to our past.

Finishing Well

          This phrase is not original with me. I own a book with this title and I’ve heard it referred to many times throughout my life. But perhaps this phrase never means as much as when we are brought face to face with the reality that life here does not last forever and that all of us, no matter how much we may wish otherwise, will one day have to cross the finish line and complete the race.

          This past week, I, for the umpteenth time in my forty-plus years in the ministry, had the privilege of burying a church member, a saint…a friend. She was not terribly old by today’s standards but she was terribly sick. As I eulogized her, I once again realized what it means to finish well. She finished well…sick but well.

          When we are young, we can’t wait to get started, for that first big opportunity to present itself, to reach an age where people finally take us seriously. I remember being so anxious to turn 30 so people would see me as a full-fledged adult. When we are young it’s all about the starting.

          A few years ago I started to notice a disturbing trend. I lost both of my parents in their 70’s. I had no grandparents left. My aunts and uncles began to get sick and some of them died. And then, the most traumatic of all was when some of my classmates, including my best friend, began to pass away.

          All of a sudden my focus was yanked away from what is, to what will someday, some day much closer than I cared to admit, be the end. The biggest question of life had just shifted from, “How do I get started?” or “How do I keep going?” to “How will I finish?”

          Lately, I’ve been taking stock of what will be left of me when I am gone. This is how I think we should determine whether or not a person finishes well. What did they leave behind? I’m not talking about money, property, businesses or collections of art. I will leave behind precious little of those things. I’m wondering if the world will be any different because I was here? Will anything I said or did make a lasting impact on a life or two that I touched? This is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about teaching college students.

I know that I will not leave behind a list of my important discoveries, patented inventions or a cure for cancer. I’m wondering though, if when I finish my race here on earth, someone might say that my smile cured their sadness, my words drove away their discouragement, or my laugh made them forget they were sick.  For you see, I believe that if those are the testimonies of those we walked with here on earth, we may not finish rich or famous or memorialized in marble, but we will have finished well.