2010: Look Around, and Love

Many years before I attended medical school, I am told, the tradition in medical schools on the first day of the first year was to tell each student: “Look to your left and look to your right. The students sitting in those seats won’t be here next year.” Attrition was an assumption of the system in those days, and “only the strong survived.”

Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s the fact that my parents and one of my siblings have already passed into the portion of eternity beyond our eyes, maybe it’s because one of my most beloved friends came close to that same step late last year…somehow I feel like I should “look to my left and look to my right” at the beginning of this year and realize that someone here and visible right now will not be here this time next year. Someone won’t be strong; someone will not survive 2010.

What then? Why should I consider that seemingly morose possibility? I guess there are a number of reasons……or maybe only one.

If I knew someone in my life had less than a year to live, how might I change my attitude towards them? Might I be more likely to overlook their foibles? Might I be less irritated when they refuse to overlook mine? Would I be more likely to call them “on the spur” rather than needing an appointment, or rather than thinking, “I’ll get around to that later,” knowing that later will likely not come soon? Would I be inclined to give the little gifts that I know they love without wanting or expecting anything in return? Would the trip we had always talked about taking together suddenly become a priority instead of a fantasy? Might their politics not matter so much? Would the fact that they are a pre-millennial dispensationalist or an Alabama fan really matter? Would race or gender or “you name it differences” really be a bucket that would hold the water of disagreement or resentment anymore?

I think the answers to all those questions would be no. And that means the question would really become just one: Might I love them more unconditionally? And the answer, without doubt, would be yes.

Okay, given that I am not omniscient (I nor you nor any human can generally see the future. We live our lives in prospect. We live with the assumption that what was true today, generally, will be the template for tomorrow, and the next and the next.) If we lack omniscience, and if each of our loved ones is undoubtedly a temporal being in this life, then maybe, just maybe, I should focus on treating each of them with the unconditional love that I would attempt if I knew, for sure, that before next year they would have passed into eternity.

So, take some time. "Look to your left and look to your right"; someone you love will not survive the year. Love each person as if they were that person, and if, at the end of the year, they are all still there, and you are still here, you won’t have lost a thing; you will have gained. In the Christian tradition, you will have “stored up treasures in heaven”. If you are not a Christian, you will have still acted like Jesus would have liked, so maybe you are and He just knows it before you do. Remember, He is the one who said, “When you did it unto these who are the least (loved them), you did it unto me (loved me).” When you love God’s creatures you love Him.

Have a great 2010…..and look around.