A guest, like all my Fathers.

King David, in what must have been a moment of angst about the tragic brevity of life, wrote in melancholy song:

“Oh Lord, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a
few handbreaths, and my lifetime is as
nothing before you. Surely all mankind
stands as a mere shadow! Surely for nothing
they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth,
and does not know who will gather!"

Psalm 30, v. 4.

No matter what creed you live by, or what beliefs you hold, there is something true about David’s words that transcends religion altogether. The insight of David’s reflection is not primarily the words themselves, but the reason behind them. He is asking, praying, that he will be made aware of his temporariness, his transiency. Is this necessary? Does not the very request itself beget his awareness of the fact? Doesn’t he already know? Or was he acknowledging that tendency people have of putting death out of their minds, or if not that, the habit of living in a way that takes for granted the frailty of life and misplaces significance in things that do not last? Did David know that before long he would forget this sacred appreciation towards time and begin again to entertain the illusions of the everyday? Surely a man like David understood the weaknesses of human character, and knew too well the attachments to this life that we form so deeply. We are not deterred from loving this life, no matter how incapable we will be in dealing with the loss that must necessarily follow. I think David knew this, and I think he believed that freeing ourselves from our attachment to this life was so inhuman, so against our nature, that to do so required a revelation.

I’m not sure if revelation is required or not, but it’s here, right in front of me. I open an ancient book, and I read the words of an ancient man, and in them I find a soul that pleads the way I feel. And what I feel, to be clear, is that the world has confused filler with substance, and false meaning is the byproduct. By sort of an ironic mistake, we have artificially distorted the value of things that fade away, and neglected that which truly lasts. Society uses this distortion to preserve itself by luring onlookers into pressure cooked lives where it sucks out their time and money and soul and distracts them to the point where they don't notice that their days are almost up until it's too late, and by then they've given their lives to it, ensuring it's immortality with their sacrifice. And while a few mourn the loss of one of their own, the masses hardly notice, and the cycle continues.

I don’t say this to aggrandize my sense of self awareness; I say it because it makes me profoundly sad to imagine a person who, coming to the end, realizes that they invested their lives in phony futures with no return. And if the author of the Psalms thought it could happen to him, I don't see why it couldn't happen to me. Or to you.

I don’t know if praying for an increased self-awareness of our own fleeting existence will make us any more likely to choose the carpenter’s cup over the golden goblet, but if all it does is remind us to look again at how we use our time here and how we live out our lives, then it wasn't in vain.



"Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul.

Ignatius himself was dressed comfortably and sensibly. The hunting cap prevented head colds. The voluminous tweed trousers were durable and permitted unusually free locomotion. Their pleats and nooks contained pockets of warm, stale air that soothed Ignatius. The plaid flannel shirt made a jacket unnecessary while the muffler guarded exposed Reilly skin between earflap and collar. The outfit was acceptable by any theological and geometrical standards, however abstruse, and suggested a rich inner life."

-John Kennedy Toole, from A Confederacy of Dunces

-N