tuesdays with morrie

I am reading Tuesdays with Morrie aloud to my kids. I love this book. I love its messages. I love the compassion Morrie has. Here are a few of the parts that I love that I read today.

Morrie is talking about how he saw a TV show with people in Bosnia getting shot at and how he started to cry for them. It was, at first, foreign to Mitch why you would feel this compassion for people someone didn't know. As a journalist, Mitch interviewed grieving families and attended funerals and never shed a tear. And Morrie said to him "The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in." I think it's so true that not only do we learn how to give but to receive which is difficult for many people who are very generous but not so loving and generous toward themselves, to allow people to help us, and to accept kindness and love when it is given.

In the next chapter a favorite part is when Morrie is talking about how people don't think about what is important in life until they are faced with death. He says "the culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until you're about to die. We're so wrapped up in egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks - we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?"

Then he adds "You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won't just happen automatically."

I hope to teach my kids to live their lives so that they always have compassion on their fellow man/woman, and to live each day to the fullest possible potential, to know that this day could be their last because death comes like a thief in the night, and this moment right here and right now is truly all we have. Fill it with love.

And what of the incredibly painful, sad, fearful times we really do endure? How do we feel love and joy amidst pain and uncertainty of the future - or in Morrie's case with known certain death? He replied to this question about whether he feels sorry for himself by saying "I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life."

Which reminds me of the bible passage taped to my bathroom door that tells me to focus my mind on what is good in the world and not get hung up on the negative, which I believe can run our mind in circles and lead to depression, which is rampant in our society. We don't need Prozac we need love! Genuine, compassionate, godly love that is not between man-woman but human-human; it can be friend, family, or mate. It is "agape" we need to learn to give and receive and that can heal the world.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Philippians 4:8