Life is for Learning

April 24, 2024

Almost three quarters of a century old and I am reminded again how quickly my life has been passing. Like Summer Vacation in HighSchool or every Friday when I take my morning pills, time has evaporated once more.

When I was young and growing up, I was pretty much oblivious and not personable whatsoever. Clueless as to what was going on around me and having no conversations with the other kids I would play with. It was all pretend and had no real substance. After supper, some more TV, and going to bed was my whole existence. School entered but I remained socially detached, and making no new friends, really, outside my neighborhood.

Through the years, there were a lot of people that were friendly, and yet, I never got to know them personally, because I lacked that personability, the simplest social skills such as asking, “What’s your name?” In that sense I remained oblivious. I never learned much that way — not about life, not about vocation.

That isolated state lasted all the way through adolescence and beyond.

I interacted more with the record player than with acquaintances.

Hindsight being 20/20, what a waste of space and time.

Fortunately, God didn’t see me that way.

This morning, my theme song seems to be “Woodstock” with immense emphasis on the lyric “…But you know life is for learning.”

Slow on the uptake, learning wasn’t my forte.

Now, I’m not talking about book learning and rote. It wasn’t until my twenties that I began to ask those life questions such as, “Who am I and why am I here?” During that same stage of my life, while I was a vagabond hitching rides around the country (mostly in California, wandering rather aimlessly through the drug culture), I asked more serious questions about war and famines and bad things happening to good people… and my questions were not polite wondering, but were words directly challenging God and His apparent nonchalance to the injustice to Humanity He apparently was choosing to ignore…

Thankfully, God didn’t zap me and turn me into carbon dust… Turns out He’s bigger than that. Like a good parent, He will take the time to patiently explain everything to a thick-headed person like myself — everything in due time — step by step, line upon line…

Unlike today’s socio-political climate in America, the mention of God, Jesus, or the Bible didn’t raise much of a fuss — no ranting and raving, no letters to the editor, no book banning, no product boycotts for frivolous reasons…

Today, it seems to me , the whole meaning of life is to prove one’s superiority and then to dominate over other people in every way imaginable.

Love your neighbor? No. It’s more like “Bash your neighbor if they get out of line.” — the line in the sand they have drawn and dare you to step over.

Thankfully, it isn’t like that with everyone.

Thankfully, God will eventually stop all the nonsense, injustice, and all those detractions Humanity designs one against another…

Check this out: 2 Peter 3:8–13, English Standard Version -

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward {all of} you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought {all of} you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God! …But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Now, I know that is a big jump for many readers to understand, let alone to accept, and might be like jumping in the pool for the first time. I also know that in its literary style it is a very sharp turn by jagged rocks. Nevertheless, it’s where I ended up, and people need to start somewhere to somehow turn their lives around and start to walk back to the original question, “Who am I and why am I here?”

“…But you know life is for learning

We are stardust

We are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden…”