My Life List
Ephesians 3:1-21
I am a list maker. In my work, for different events, or during certain seasons of the year - I make a list. Many of the lists are in my head, but there are always a few lists that I enjoy taking more time to think through and work with and so I sit down with a cup of coffee and put pen to paper. In early November I begin to think a little bit about Christmas and so I prepare a cup of hot coffee and jot down gift ideas for family members, as well as something that I might do for myself during the busy season. In late spring, I mix up some iced coffee, sit on the back porch and write down what I might like to do, to read, or to see over the summer months. Over the years I been able to cross off many of the items on those lists, although not all and feel that I have been somewhat disciplined in bringing my dreams and ideas to fruition. Those lists guide me and remind me of my steps and my goals.
However there are few list makers as disciplined as John Goddard. John Goddard is known as one the world’s greatest adventurers who at the age of 15 sat down and compiled a list of 127 goals that he hoped to accomplish in his lifetime. That was in 1940, today he is 84 years old and has accomplished almost all of the original goals and along the way added a few hundred other activities and accomplishments in his life. Here is a portion of his original list:
- Explore the entire Nile River, the Amazon, the Congo, the Colorado rivers.
- Study the primitive cultures of the Congo, Borneo, Australia and Kenya.
- Climb The Matterhorn, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Rainer, and Mount Fuji.
- Carry out a career in medicine and exploration.
- Visit the Great Wall of China, Vatican City, The Taj Mahal, The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
- Become an Eagle Scout, fly in a blimp, ride a camel, play the flute and violin, go on a church mission, build a telescope, write a book, high jump five feet, learn French, Spanish and Arabic. Read the Bible from cover to cover; read the works of Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Dickens, Thoreau, Poe and about 10 more great authors.
- Become familiar with the music of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and about 8 more great composers.
- Become proficient in the use of a plane, motorcycle, tractor, surfboard, pistol, rifle, canoe, microscope, football and 6 other things.
- Milk a poisonous snake.
- Marry and have 5 children.
- Live to see the 21st Century.
He climbed the Matterhorn during a blizzard; followed the route of Marco Polo through the Middle East, Asia and China; he has flown 47 different types of aircraft, and set several civilian air-speed records including one at 1,500 miles an hour. And as far as I can tell, he is still on the go and also finds time to do motivational speaking.
That’s an amazing 15 year old. Someone with enough knowledge and foresight to compose such a list and possess strength of mind, determination, courage, fortitude and the tenacity needed to stick with it.
What does your life list say? Do you have a life list in your head or on paper? You may have even managed to cross off some of those things by fulfilling a life-long dream or learning some new skills. You may have become a teacher or a scientist, traveled to Alaska or China, learned to play the piano or run in a marathon. Maybe you are in the midst of learning or accomplishing something new right now and you are working on your life list.
But have you ever sat down and made a life list of characteristics, qualities or virtues that you wanted to live by and then had the determination and tenacity to carry them out? Does, or would your life list include being kind, being compassionate, being courageous or faithful? We all might consider making such a list, to cultivate our character and employing the same diligence and tenacity in living them out.
As people of faith, we come to church, listen to sermons, and hear the stories of Jesus and the lessons of scripture. We study, we sing, we listen and we pray. How does all that impact who we are as people of faith? How does that shape the type of people that we are outside of the church? Do we have each have a number of Christian characteristics or virtues that we try to live by -so much so that they are habits of our heart and we are known by them? What would people say about us if they had to describe us? Would they say we were strong and courageous, that we were kind and compassionate? That in all our actions we act justly, love kindly and walk humbly with God? And do we take that as seriously as we do a desire to learn a new language, take vacation or lose weight?
Some of the virtues that can shape us from the inside out are compassion, courage, generosity, gentleness, trustworthiness, tolerance, excellence, flexibility, forgiveness, respect, perseverance, moderation, honor, creativity, joyfulness, truthfulness and humility. When I am asked to write a reference for someone – I think through those types of qualities in the person so that I can adequately reflect the content of their character. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher of the fourth century wrote about virtues. Benjamin Franklin, also a lover of lists, consciously tried to live by a number of virtues that were important to him such as humility, tranquility, order and frugality. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about them in the thirteenth century in his Summa Theologica. He placed them into four major categories which were fortitude, justice, temperance and prudence, as well as the three major Christian virtues of faith, hope and love.
The apostle Paul liked lists as well. In Galatians 5 he says we should live by the fruits of the Holy Spirit and those fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In Colossians he says that we are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.”
Thomas said that these virtues are an “operative habit, the excellence or perfection of a thing” and “all these moral virtues…… regulate (a human being) in their dealings with others.” What are the operative habits of our heart and mind that regulate our dealings with one another?
I believe that fortitude, justice, temperance and prudence are at the core of the Henry Louis Gates Jr., arrest this week. Aquinas said that justice is the will or quality of being just, fair, and rendering right action for all. Prudence is the quality that allows a person to choose the sensible course and temperance is the quality of being temperate or moderate in any action, thought or feeling. When you peel away the layers of what happened that day in Cambridge and in the days following in order to analyze and then move forward, we are dealing with issues of what is just, what is sensible and what is temperate. And I believe that those are at the core of our own reaction to this incident as well. We react and wrestle with justice means for all. And I believe that if the parties involved would sit down and talk, in order to move forward that it will be fortitude, strength of mind or moral courage which will fuel the discussions and lead to a resolution. There will have to be give and take, or moral courage for any of the parties to say “you know I might have handled this a little differently.” We all need fortitude or moral courage in our relationships when we have to give a little and say “I might have handled this a little differently.”
Are these virtues on your life list and how do they regulate or guide your behavior?
Temperance
Justice
Prudence
Fortitude
Faith
Hope
Love
In our scripture today from Ephesians, Paul takes about having fortitude or strength that comes from Christ. Jesus Christ is the source of our strength.
Paul says, “I pray that God may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being….. May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are rooted and grounded in love and may you have power to grasp how deep and wide and long and high is the love of Christ and that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to the one who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.
Fortitude; strength of mind and moral courage, comes when we are rooted and grounded in the love of Christ which is deep and wide and long and high. The love of Christ who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
If that isn’t fortification for the tough tasks of daily living – I don’t know what else is.
Through Jesus Christ we are fortified and we can find the strength to live our lives with courage, perseverance and endurance.
Peter Gomes in his book The Good Life says “Fortitude is that moral quality that allows us to persevere when others would easily give up or give in; it is the fuel of the long-distance moral runner who despite inner fatigue and the apparent outward success of others, nevertheless keeps on keeping on.”
So what is on your life list?
Explore the Great Barrier Reef in Australia?
Live with courage?
Climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower?
Cultivate gentleness?
Write a book?
Live justly?
Read some of the classics?
Remain faithful?
Be hopeful, joyful and loving?
May our life lists, hopes, dreams and actions always be rooted in “the one who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!”
Amen
Rev. Deborah J. Blanchard
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