In a little less than a year, I’m going to move to a new home. After 30 years in Winston-Salem, NC, I’m going to move to a retirement community in St. Petersburgh, Fl. Besides the normal issues that a move raises, especially one after living in the same place for thirty years, in all likelihood this may be the last move that I will make in my life. That is not because I have been diagnosed with some fatal disease. It is simply because I am 71, the retirement community, Westminster Shores, has the step up health care that I will likely need, and probably this will be the last place I will call home.
I’m not morbid about that but it has caused me to reflect on life from a different perspective. I’ve always read that part of Scripture that says that “you know not the day nor the hour,” as if it were talking about the end of the world. Now, I realize that it speaks most clearly to me about the end of my world. While I may live for another twenty years, it is also possible that it will be less than that. Regardless, I am looking at my end. Of course the issue of life after death arises, but for now, I want to reflect on my end here on earth and how that affects my perspective on my living.
As I do that in the next couple of days, I hope that it will also lead to an exercise for you on how to view your life from a different perspective. How does it affect your living when you face the fact that there is an end? How does that affect your sense of vocation? What is your calling as measured from that perspective?
