I have always been a fan of Deuteronomy 30:19, the full text of which is featured above. The idea that we, as human beings, will always have a choice - and that we can choose, in any moment, either "life" or "death" - gives us a proper understanding of the significance of our situation.
We are here (wherever we are) not by our own effort. Our existence is, truly, a "mystery." We don't know "why," but we do know "where." Here we are!
In any moment, we have a continuing choice. Both for ourselves, and for others, we can choose "life" - which may come with great pains and difficulties - or we can choose "death."
It's up to us.
As I outline in my blog posting, "Worldview 101," we are all "observers," as well as "actors," You may be making the same observations I am.
The way I am seeing it, more and more of us are choosing "death," not "life." Here is a recent news item that led me to this blog posting. It's a very brief little article from the February 3, 2023, edition of The New York Daily News:
A retired NYPD cop and her boyfriend were found dead inside her Brooklyn home in a possible murder suicide, cops and family members said.
Cops arrived at the home on Beverly Rd. near E. 48th St. in East Flatbush at about 2:50 p.m. Friday to find Petlyn Job, 49, and her boyfriend, Alex Delone, 56, dead with gunshot wounds to their heads, said multiple sources.
I don't know what circumstances convinced the shooter that "death" was preferable to "life," but the choice made in Brooklyn seems ever more typical. Mass shootings, more and more common, play out in the exact same way. Someone who has decided to choose "death," not "life," kills one or more other people (the more the better, it often seems) and then kills himself or herself.
Our world - and the continuation of our world - is premised on the idea that we will "choose life." We have been given life - let's call it a gift - without having made any choice to accept that gift. But once alive, we can choose to continue in life. Or not. If more and more of us are not choosing "life," but are choosing "death," instead, I think we should take this as a warning sign. Something's wrong. That's what I think. It could well be our general loss of "hope," the secret of everything.
We each have a "choice," but the world depends upon us "choosing life."
That's what I am doing.
And I hope you, too!
Image Credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jerusalemprayerteam/7855208122
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