The Goal of Life

 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  So choose life in order that you may live.  Deut. 30:19

Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken" reflects on a daily occurrence.  Throughout our day we find ourselves multiple times at a fork: with a path running in (at least) two different directions.  In Frost's poem the person choosing takes the less traveled way. Some readers of the poem have seen in it a suggestion that a person should not take the easy way, but that the harder way will net greater reward.  The moral implied that all things worth doing take hard work.  It does happen that the harder one's life is and the harder one works the greater the rewards down the line.  But the opposite also frequently occurs. Many struggle throughout their existence on earth and die in the cold with only a cardboard box to hug them at the end.

The writer of Deuteronomy places us at the fork in the road of heaven and earth, death and life, curse and blessing and advises: "Choose life."  In living our daily lives, what does choosing life entail?  Of course, one set of choices and determinative factors is what is best for me and/or my family?  Into that mix is the reality that we each have differing sets of "givens," including all the resources we may have at our disposal.  But the writer clearly has a larger set of choices in mind as well.  Those are the forks that a larger community of which we are a part choose.  What determinative factors does a community of faith, or a nation, use to "choose life?"  That question should be what choices nurture and encourage the best for everyone? 

As followers of Jesus, the community choices can't be only about me and mine.  Brute selfishness by any member (or any small faction of members) tears at the fabric of what holds the larger community together. What holds a community together is the bond we have to each of the other members with whom we're in life together. The forks we come to and face together have to support life, blessing, and love for all. 

So expanding outwardly from small to large how do we embrace roads that lead to life for me, my family, my faith community, my town/city, my state, my country, my continent, my world?  For each bond of community we consider, the holy, most divine goal is how to be life-giving. 

Questions:

How did Jesus demonstrate the goal of being a life-giver?

In what ways are you putting the power of life-giving to work in each community of which your are part?

What practices might you incorporate into your Advent and Christmas holiday that give life to someone else?

Prayer:

We pray, O Most Holy One, that every fork in life's road we come to that we can clearly see the path that nurtures love and redemption.  Amen.