Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Hand Me a Wild Strawberry

I'm working on a book that recounts the funny, sweet and wise reminiscences of some seniors in a senior daycare center. Here's a clever story that one man shared....

Once upon a time, a man was being chased by tiger, and he came to the edge of a cliff. Looking backward, he saw the tiger approach, so he jumped. On the way down, he reached out, grabbed a bush and was saved. He looked down and saw another tiger waiting at the bottom of the cliff, smacking its lips. Just as he felt the bush begin to weaken, he noticed a wild strawberry growing out of a crack in the rocky cliff. With one hand, he reached out, picked the strawberry and ate it. And he said to himself, “Now, that’s a delicious strawberry.” And that is just how it is with us!

Life, they say, is a terminal illness. From the day we’re born, we know someday we will die, and we never know when it will be. Some of us in this room have been told we have serious illness. But that goes for all of us, even if we feel well now.

In the course of human history, the moment in which we live our lives is just long enough to eat and enjoy a wild strawberry.

If we follow the stories about the Big Bang that they now say launched the physical universe, and how many billions of stars there are with no life, we wonder at the miracle of life on planet earth. In another billion years, the energy may all dissipate, or another star might collide with our sun.

So what? We have time today to pick a wild strawberry and enjoy it and give thanks.

Every since Hiroshima, and now with 60,000 nukes on earth, we look down and see that tiger opening its jaws.

Please hand me a strawberry.

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