Got Purpose?

The 2004 post-election political commentaries that ensue from the media are familiar echoes of a Shakespearean line uttered on stage few hundred years earlier:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries

Julius Caesar

Act IV, Scene 3

With the election results settled, the political pundits are now dispensing the "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" advices for governance. Some are even contriving a social-political agenda on "render unto God the things that are God's." The latter prospect is promulgated by the minority political party for its failing to anticipate the rising tide of the so-called "moral values" gathered at the exit polls. Whether the perceived moral values had contributed to one party's election victory and another's defeat are still being debated.

One ought to be so careful when considering a religion makeover for the purpose of political expediency. God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7).

Faith, hope, and charity are and because of God (1 Corithians 13:13; James 1:27). They can not be grafted on by political motivations nor attained by looking to self-help gurus.

Lest one cirlces or drifts aimlessly, faith and charity are a two-oar endeavor to one rowing in the river of life. They are borne of a contrite heart, with faith and hope placed in God (Psalm 51; 1 Peter 1:19-23). The direction to row comes from an abiding heart in response to Christ's love. All because it was He who loved us first (1 John 4:19).

We see a heart of service poured out from this faith-based poem, “I Shall Not Pass This Way Again.” This poem is an eloquent expression of a Christian woman who seeks and finds a life with purpose. A comfortable and idyllic existence is preferred but not purposeful. The Canadian poet and composer, Eva Rose York (1858 - post-1935), writes in these excerpted passages:

O God, forgive

That now I live

As if I might, sometime, return

To bless the weary ones that yearn

For help and comfort every day,-

For there be such along the way.

O God, forgive that I have seen

The beauty only, have not been

Awake to sorrow such as this;

That I have drunk the cup of bliss

Remembering not that those there be

Who drink the dregs of misery.

I love the beauty of the scene,

Would roam again o'er fields so green;

But since I may not, let me spend

My strength for others to the end,-

For those who tread on rock and stone,

And bear their burdens all alone,

Who loiter not in leafy bowers,

Nor hear the birds nor pluck the flowers,

A larger kindness give to me,

A deeper love and sympathy;

Then, O, one day

May someone say-

Remembering a lessened pain-

"Would she could pass this way again."

To read the complete poem:

I Shall Not Pass This Way Again