“Every man dies-Not every man really lives." William Wallace in Braveheart
I forgot about this quote until Hume Lake summer camp 2009 when I saw this phrase handwritten in permanent marker on the back of some random T-Shirt. Some of you Braveheart fans remember this famous quote offered to the Princess of France, pregnant with his child, just moments before his execution as she made a futile attempt to beg for him to recant and take the easy way out of his immanent execution. With the poise that only Hollywood can muster, Wallace rejected her attempts to sway him. After all, the easy way of death is still death! Or like a hunting buddy once said when commenting about his .300 Ultra-mag, “Overkill is still dead.”
“Every man dies-Not every man really lives.”
I believe this quote. Not only do I believe it but I am committed to never be in that group of men who die but never truly live. I do not want to be marked with those as Teddy Roosevelt once said, “cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Tony Compolo put it another way when he said, “Instead of people praying, ‘If I die before I wake’, they should pray, ‘If I wake before I die.’” On my book list mentioned on this blog are several books but the most recent one I read as a second reading (it means something when a man reads a book twice) is John Eldredge’s book, Waking the Dead, in which he takes the length of the book to meditate on St. Ireneaus’ statement that, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”
“Every man dies-Not every man really lives.”
What kind of man are you? Take a moment and grab your Bible. Come on now, I haven’t got all day. Okay, got it? Good, now turn to the back of your Bible to the maps and look for a map that may have a heading something like, “Palestine in the Day of Jesus”. Now, looking at the eastern border of Israel you come to the Jordon River, follow it south until it dumps into the Dead, or Salt Sea. Notice the name(s). Nothing lives in this sea for two reasons. The first and most obvious one is because of the incredibly high salt content. If you go online you can actually see a picture of a man floating vertically in its waters!
Second, you will notice that there is no outflow so the Jordan’s waters hold up in the Dead Sea with no place to go; except to stagnation. It is literally a sea of death; thus, the Dead Sea. Too many men that I meet are like this. They have no outflow, or source to service; subsequently their life is a stagnant pool of selfishness and waste. They spend hours each day living vicariously through the false realities found on their game stations, counterfeit relationships formed online, the television, and addictions to sporting events. Heck, James and I got a laugh about the guy we met at the gym who said he knew how to coach football and knew pass coverage’s because of the video games he played! No thank you I prefer to actually play and coach football for real! Stick to your fantasy world and I will stick to the real world if you don’t mind! These men are arm chair quarterbacks for their own lives unwilling to get in the game and play for their own.
Sadly, these men are becoming more the rule in our society than they exception. These men are a child’s dirty bath water and a stagnant pool of death forfeiting their own lives for something less, something false, and something dead.
