I wish I had a dollar for every person in the country who today says, “That’s it. Tonight’s my last night to eat. Tomorrow I start the diet.” I’d have enough money to open my personal health spa, complete with a fitness goon squad that would administer a beat down if I so much as thought about Breyers Ice Cream.

Among the Top 5 New Year resolutions are “lose weight”. Losing it isn’t so much the problem. The problem is that we always seem to find it again. It’s like Hansel and Gretel in reverse. With determination and great resolve, we walk away from the empty calories until about three weeks down the road of supplements, protein bars and health foods that taste like the plywood aisle at Home Depot, we turn around and follow the trail of cake and cookie crumbs back to the Boston Creme Pie.

I’m thinking not many people schedule their annual physical between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Do a work up right now and most of our blood types would be chocolate covered cherry. I avoided the chocolate covered cherries this year. Didn’t eat a single one. But alas, chocolate covers a multitude of food. So I’m among those resolving to eat healthier in the New Year.

The other day I weaved through the aisles at Barnes & Noble. An astonishing volume of titles on every imaginable subject. The health and diet section was no exception. Without pulling any of them off the shelf to peek between the covers, I simply made notes of the book titles. It appears there are many different methods to lose weight.

There were the obvious. “Eat To Live”. “How To Live Longer”. And the same point made in a more direct way, “How Not To Die”. Of those three, I think I’d start with the latter first. If I know how not to die, I’ll have time to learn how to eat to live.

There were what appeared to be technical diets. The “Thyroid Diet”. How does one know if their thyroid is overweight? And the “Acid/Alkaline Balance Diet”. Just how do I check that balance? It sounds like an invasive chemistry experiment. I didn’t do well in chemistry and just the word “invasive” makes me want to look for comfort food. “Eat 4 Your Blood Type” sounds clinical and implies white lab coats and needles. Not happening.

Some of the titles could be classified “Duh!” diets. “The Living Heart Diet”. As opposed to what? When my heart stops, I won’t be reaching for the Doritos anymore. And the “Eat Where You Live” diet. Isn’t this a given? To not eat where I live means perpetual travel. Ah, maybe that’s the trick. I’ve never seen a fat nomad.

Next to it on the shelf was one called “Power Eating”. Isn’t that what got me here in the first place? Then there was the “Take Control Diet”. Hello! If I could do that I wouldn’t need to diet.

There were some “no way, no how” diets. Like the “No Flour, No Sugar Diet”. Let me understand…you’re taking away my White Chocolate Apricot Bread and Double Stuf Oreos? No more Krispy Kreme or seafood linguine? A month on that diet and I’d be writing “The Angry Man’s Diet Cure”…Chapter 1 - “Glocks and Donuts”.

Some of the books would fall into a “niche diet” category. “Secrets of Skinny Chicks” and “How To Eat Like A Hot Chick”. I’m not a chick so these don’t help me. And the “The Dorm Room Diet”. Who knew you could shed pounds with beer and Ramen Noodles?

Then there are the “too good to be true” and “I wish” diets. “Shrink Yourself.” “The Beauty Diet”. I could use those for sure. The “Flat Belly Diet” and  “Think Yourself Thin”. I’ve actually been on that diet most of my adult life. But I usually do my thinking with coffee and caramel rolls so it hasn’t worked.

There’s the “I haven’t a clue” diets. The “TNT Diet”. Explosives? That could be fun. And the “Inflammation Free Diet”. Trust me. Any diet that makes my insides feel like fire and I’m dousing it with a gallon of sweet tea.

And the curious “Flexitarian Diet”. I know vegetarians. I know Rotarians. I know Rotarians who are vegetarians. I have no clue what a Flexitarian is, let alone their way of eating. Back-bends while sucking down protein shakes through a bendy straw?

Then there’s the “sounds like fun” diets. The “Eating In The Raw” diet. I tried that one once. I’m not allowed back in that cafe.

Two books seemed meant for me. “Dieting For Dummies” and the “Idiot’s Guide To Dieting”. But on second look, they were both really thick books. Lots of pages. I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb. That many chapters pointing out what an idiot I am and it’ll send me straight back to Mountain Dew and Zingers.

And finally the book “How To Make Most Any Diet Work”. I didn’t open it but I can tell you they didn’t need that many pages to explain the secret.

Eat less.

Exercise more.

Burn more calories than you consume.

Repeat every day.

If those those last four sentences ring true and inspire your quest for better health, feel free to skip the trip to Barnes & Noble and send me the $19.95 instead.

Unless you’re still curious about that “Flexitarian Diet”. I understand.

I’m still wondering about that one myself.

Happy New Year.

Todd A. Thompson -www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

When the sun began to slip behind the trees lining the west side of the lake, we pulled in the ropes and turned the boat toward the dock. As we headed across the water I looked over at Clair and Steve and saw them putting their life jackets back on.

“Are we going to ski some more?”, I asked.

Clair threw me a life jacket and said, “Put this on.” Clair was two years older and bigger than I was, so I did. He then pointed at Kristi, “You drive the boat.”

As Kristi took her place behind the wheel, Clair tightened the belt on his vest and said, “Here’s what we’re gonna do. When Kristi gets this boat up to full speed, the three of us are going to jump out. It’ll be fun.”

I believed him.

Kristi spun the boat around and jammed the accelerator forward. We were really flying. With a scream, Clair jumped over the edge. Then Steve jumped. Just like Navy commandos in a war film.

Then I jumped.

I hit the water, but I didn’t go in the water. I just bounced and rolled across the top like dice on a card table. When I stopped rolling, I swooshed into the lake. After getting my bearings I looked around and saw Clair and Steve bobbing in the water like a couple of brainless buoys.

Somebody yelled, “Is anybody dead?”

Nobody was dead.

So we got back in the boat and did it again.

When I think about that day on the lake, I can’t help but admit it’s a fitting illustration of how I sometimes handle the fast and frantic pace of life. The quiet waters were there. The calm and the still. But I wasn’t resting beside them. I was bouncing and rolling across the top.

If I’m honest, too often that’s my pattern. I bounce and roll over the top of the quiet waters God leads me to. Those moments of reflection I need for renewal and godly refreshment. Instead of resting beside the still waters, I race past desperately needed solitude with Him.

And even knowing that I’ve bounced and rolled past the quietness God offers me, I get back in my busy boat and do it again.

This is the time of year when we begin to evaluate where we’ve been and where we’d like to go. What we’ve accomplished and what remains to be achieved. Hopefully there are goals fulfilled we can check off our 2008 list. Even if we achieved greatly, it’s likely we have unfinished business to carry into 2009.

As we evaluate and plan, I wonder… 

…if we spent less time spent bouncing and rolling out of the busy boat and more time reflecting by the still waters, is it possible we could accomplish more? Better, would more time spent with God beside the still waters help us to accomplish the right things? Would He help us not to confuse activity with productivity? If we spent more time with God, to hear Him and know His heart; is it possible our efforts to achieve would begin to flow from our relationship with Him?

Here’s to less time spent bouncing and rolling. More time spent with God beside the still waters. In spending time with God, we learn who we are in Him. When we know who we are in Him, we understand better what He would have us do for Him.

“…He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.” – Psalm 23

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

I’ll never live in a house that’s part of a homeowner association.

I was talking with someone the other day who said they got a letter from their HOA asking them to “move the blue chair off your front yard”.

How relieved I was to know there are people committed to keeping the world safe from blue chairs.

The first time I learned about HOA’s was when I moved to the Phoenix valley back in 1993. I rolled in to town in the Ryder truck at 3 AM, crashed on the floor at a friend’s place and was gone by 7 AM. He got a letter from the HOA citing him for illegal parking of a truck in front of his house.

For 4 hours? In the middle of the night?

Whoever wrote that letter probably hates blue chairs, too.

The expressed purpose of HOA’s is to protect the property values of the neighborhood. There’s something to be said about protecting one’s investment. It’s a pleasure to drive through a “nice neighborhood”. Something about manicured lawns and well kept homes that’s inviting and, dare I say it? Makes you want to live there.

But once you move in and hang your family name plaque above the front door (if they allow you to do that), everything changes. Lawns aren’t mowed for the simple pleasure of smelling fresh cut grass on a Saturday afternoon. They are cut to be sure a single rogue dandelion doesn’t show it’s golden face to the sky. To miss a single weed is to invite a citation from the HOA board.

Now if the dandelion got permission first, then maybe…

If it were only a matter of a weed here and there. Some people live through real life horror stories and have lost their homes in HOA disputes. A man from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., lost his home because he planted too many roses on his four-acre property. The board fined him each month until finally slapping a lien on his home. He went to court and lost because he’d transgressed the board’s architectural design rules. He was stuck with the board’s $70,000 legal fees and lost his home to the bank.

You know you’re up against it when dealing with people who actually believe there is such a thing as “too many roses”.

Show me a typical HOA board and I’ll show you a group of people still bitter about not being voted President of their sophomore class. They couldn’t weigh in on how to decorate for the prom so they get their satisfaction making and enforcing rules about appropriate flag pole designs and adding bleach to fountain water, guaranteeing crystal clear droplets that shout, “NirvanaTopia - Your Dream Development.”

(Make sure your bleach water fountain doesn’t splash too much. They’ll send you a letter about the dead spots in your lawn. For real.)

I can’t point to chapter and verse so this is strictly my opinion. If you get to heaven and see an HOA, be very afraid. Because you’re not where you think you are.

There won’t be any HOA’s in heaven. There is only one Owner up there and He created a complete palette of colors, not just 33 approved shades of beige and taupe. God’s all about expressing the full beauty of His creation and I think He will be fine with His children doing the same.

So if you don’t think you’d like living next door to someone in heaven who paints his mansion Phoenix Suns orange and purple and plants pink tulips along a lime green driveway, you better start saying your prayers and asking God for a different golden street to live on. Because I plan on coming out of my shell up there.

And on the off chance there’s more than one purple and orange house in the heavenly city, you’ll know which one is mine.

The one with the blue chair in front.

 Todd A. Thompson      www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Alexander Whyte said…

“The victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.”

That is certainly true when it comes to our devotional relationship with God, otherwise known as “quiet time”. It has to be one of the Christian’s most popular New Year’s resolutions, “To read my Bible through and spend more time with God.” So we try. We fail. We try again. This time with stronger resolve. But our resolve, while sincere, is weak. The excitement that carried us through Genesis wanes in Exodus and dies a slow painful death in Leviticus.

Oh well, there’s always next year.

Many of us approach our quiet time with a mechanical formula and a prescribed idea of what a proper quiet time should look like. We may try to emulate the patterns of famous saints of one or two or four hundred years ago; men and women who rose at 4 AM and prayed for three hours everyday without considering that they lived in a world one or two or four hundred times slower than ours. Honestly, if you had no TV, radio, e-mails, telephones, or automobiles in your life you’d have more time to think deep thoughts.

That’s not an excuse for avoiding quiet times. Simply an acknowledgment that we have to work harder at it. I suspect that given their passion for writing, John Calvin and Martin Luther would have been computer freaks had Apple and Microsoft been in Geneva and Germany. Imagine Luther nailing his papers to the door in a color laser printed 15-point font and Calvin putting his Institutes on the web? 

This isn’t easy to do, but remember that when you’re in the Bible you’re in the real world. In fact, you’re never more in touch with reality than when you are reading, studying, and meditating on the Bible. The life we’re living on this planet, the daily frenzy that consumes us, is passing away (2 Corinthians 4:18). It isn’t going to last. It’s on borrowed time with no extensions. As real as it seems, life as we know it on planet earth isn’t going to last. God and His word are eternal. Don’t think of time alone with God’s Word as something to squeeze into your day. Think of it as a daily reality check reminding you of what’s forever and what is fleeting.

The Bible is a big book. Even more daunting (and comforting) is that it is an infinite text. You could study it exclusively and non-stop for a hundred years and you’d still discover new truths. It’s God’s word and God is infinite. The desire at the start of a new year is to read all of it. That’s certainly worthwhile. And you won’t be disappointed if you do. Yet if the only goal is to read through the Bible in a year it’s possible to arrive at December 31st having sped through the Bible; not unlike the Dad who brags to his family about how fast they made the drive from Iowa to California. “Didn’t stop to see anything but we sure made good time.”

How much better would it be to say, ”My focus in 2008 is to spend time everyday in the book of Ephesians.” A whole year to spend on 155 verses. Sound too narrow? Feel like you’re ignoring the rest of the Bible by spending a year in one book? What’s the goal of our growth anyway? Isn’t it to “be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29)? Relaxed, thorough and joyful study of one book for a year will build infinitely more into your character than speeding through the entire Bible just to say you did. Because the chapters and verses will become part of who you are.

Spend the year, for example, in Ephesians and you’ll enter 2009 with a deeper understanding of how God chose you before the foundations of the world. You’ll marvel at the incredible miracle that you were saved by grace through faith. That you’re part of a bigger picture, a player in God’s divine drama to whom He has given gifts and talents with which to build up others. You’ll understand what it means to walk worthy and how to deal with your former life apart from Christ. You’ll have insights on how to be better husbands and wives and parents. And you’ll learn how to prepare for the spiritual battle that is waged.

A year spent understanding your vertical relationship with God and your horizontal relationships with others? How practical is that? How much more productive would our lives be a year from now for having spent a year in Ephesians?

In 2008 why not consider going deep with 1 book instead of wide with 66?           
   
As you read, relate. Talk with God. Not in some austere stained-glass voice that you never use any other time. Talk. Get real. Be real. Push past the accusations of Satan that say you’ve got no right bringing your sorry self in front of a holy God. That business is done. You’re not a child of wrath anymore. You’ve been redeemed, regenerated, reconciled and restored. God says we are to “come boldly before the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). So come boldly. And gratefully. You’re not a slave anymore. You’re a child of God. God likes His kids to talk to Him. In fact, He delights in it. So talk!

Take time, too, to listen. Solitude and quietness are not our strong suit. Most of us live in perpetual noise. Some of us aren’t comfortable unless we have white noise in the background. (This is me, raising my hand.) Quiet is good for us. Once you get past the initial thoughts of “I really should be doing something” God can and will use the quiet to build your soul. Don’t be afraid of meeting God in the silence. He’s your friend. Time spent in silence with God will strengthen you for living in the noise of the day. 

Explore personal worship. Find a good CD of your favorite worship music, relax and listen. Load up your I-Tunes and your I-Pod with worship music. Focus on the words and allow the music to draw your attention to God. We don’t worship enough. When we take time to be influenced by godly lyrics and beautiful music we’re growing in Christ. What an enjoyable way to grow! Money spent on quality sound systems is money well spent.

Can I say it? Sometimes louder is better. My 7-year olds crank “Shout To The Lord”, Aaron Shust’s “My Savior My God” and Israel & New Breed’s arrangement of “Trading My Sorrow”. There are times to hear the music. And there are times to feel the music.

The victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings. On the eve of the new year, let’s enjoy God’s grace in the fresh start.

Here’s to all of us making 2008 a year of experiencing the loyal love of God.

“Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known among the nations what He has done. Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all his wonderful acts. glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.” – Psalm 105:1-4 

“After the first of the year.” During the frenetic Christmas holiday we speak of early January as though it were a wide open, barren expanse of schedule where meetings, appointments and get togethers are free to roam and plop down at their leisure. Somewhere along the way we’ve convinced ourselves that January is December’s pressure release valve; the calendar’s junk drawer where we shove everything in our schedule we don’t have time for now but plan to deal with someday soon. It seems a distinction we give only to January. When’s the last time you heard someone say, “Things are crazy right now. Let’s wait till after Flag Day.” ?

Practically speaking, there’s no difference between turning the calendar page from December to January than turning it from July to August. And if we really analyze our schedules, every month is as busy as another. We mark time by clocks and calendars. Calendars offer the potential to set deadlines. That’s good. Calendars also offer the potential to slide commitments to a future day. That’s procrastination.

Those who know me well compliment me on my ability to be productive under pressure. I do my best work, they say, in the 11th hour. They mean it as a compliment. The fact is I work well under pressure because I’ve had years of practice laboring at the last minute. I’m a procrastinating perfectionist. I could count on one hand the number of papers in undergraduate and graduate school that I finished early. I’d need a calculator to count the papers and projects I finished at 3 AM on the due date. My college advisor, Dr. Wayne Norman, wisely described it as “going beyond the optimum level of stress.” My ability to work well under pressure is born of several decades of my bad habit of procrastinating.

There is something insidious about “the first of the year”. Insidious in that it becomes an acceptable escape for our failed resolutions and procrastinations. “I’ll start in January” we tell ourselves (sometimes in February or March) when we fail to follow through on a personal improvement promise. After twelve months of pushing them off, we arrive at the New Year only to find it loaded down with the old year’s unfulfilled goals. Add this year’s good intentions and it’s almost too heavy for lift off.

Now that we’re here in 2006, how are we going to spend our time? Some of us make lists of resolutions only to feel guilty a month later when we haven’t followed through. Nothing wrong with resolutions. But maybe a better way to be productive is to admit and act on the fact that some things just aren’t worth our time.

One time study done some years ago showed that Americans in their lifetime will, on average, spend 6 months sitting at stoplights, 8 months opening junk mail, 1 year looking for misplaced objects, 2 years unsuccessfully returning phone calls, 4 years doing housework, and 5 years waiting in line. Analyzing those statistics another way, if we got rid our our phones, quit buying Windex and Lemon Pledge, moved to a cabin in the middle of Montana and traded the car for a horse, we could get 13 years of our life back.

A simple step toward making the most of this year is to not give our time to everything that screams for it. Maybe it means listening to more music and less TV. Reading more books. If you don’t use coupons, don’t waste time cutting them out. Maybe it means admitting that the planet will continue to spin if your house goes an extra few days without being vacuumed and dusted. Don’t reorganize the junk in your garage. Purge it. And could we all make a corporate resolution to recapture 8 months of our lifetime by holding the junk mail in our hand without opening it and speak aloud the words of King Solomon, “Behold, there is nothing new under the sun” before throwing it in the recycling bin?

A successful 2006 may depend as much on what we don’t do as what we do do.

It’s officially “after the first of the year”. Here’s to not doing the unimportant. Here’s to not procrastinating in doing that which is important. You know which is which.

Now go make friends with your recycling bin.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1

The New Year. Our good intentions are at their peak in January. Yet there’s no magic in the turning of a calendar page. The challenge of a New Year is that we bring our old self into it. So how do we make a fresh start?

God is a gracious God. A God of “do overs”. His unconditional love means we are free to put the past behind us and run forward into the new adventures He has for us. In the process, He kindly shows us the difference between “living” and “existing”.

(Presented to Hope Covenant Church – Chandler, AZ – 1/2/2005)

A few years ago I saw an infomercial for a Power Rider. I knew that if Minnesota Vikings Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton said it was a great machine then it had to be exactly what I needed. The best part, I told myself, was I wouldn’t have to go to the gym anymore. It always bugged me. Being at the health club on a treadmill for 30 minutes with every TV monitor in the place tuned in to “Oprah”. Ugh. Having my own Power Rider meant the privilege of parking it in front of my own 27″ Toshiba where I could ride my way to health while watching real man programs like “Bass Masters Championship Fishing” and Australian Rules Football on ESPN.

I rode my Power Rider everyday and it did for me exactly what Fran said it would. My legs got stronger. I felt more energy throughout the day. Maybe, just maybe, Fran was right. This Power Rider would be the way to a brand new me.

After about a month or so I reasoned that exercise equipment didn’t fit the decor of the living room. I began appreciating other features of the machine, like the uniquely engineered fold-up design and handy wheels that allowed me to whisk it away into the spare bedroom. When I was ready to ride my way to health, I could wheel it right back out.

It was a one-way trip. The truth is I got tired of feeling guilty every time I looked at this stationary torture device with a padded seat. I rode my Power Rider everyday for three weeks because Fran Tarkenton said it was the way to the new me. But really, what does Fran Tarkenton have in common with me, except that we can both point to Minnesota on a map? The old me that ordered this hunk of black metal forgot that Fran wasn’t going to ride it for me. I had to do it.

Oh, and those muscular babes and dudes on the infomercial? The bronzed gods and goddesses in neon spandex, Power Riding at light speed without breaking a sweat? One word: Genetics. What they don’t tell you is that their DNA code is programmed to buff. They would be the picture of health and fitness even if they worked at Dairy Queen for 30 years and were their own best customer. Me? If I rode this pony all the way to Tierra del Fuego, washboard abs would be in Antarctica. My Power Rider turned into an expensive towel rack. The wide handle bars are perfect for drying those bulky knit sweaters. Throw your Grandma’s quilt over the adjustable seat and you’ve got yourself a piece of avant-garde furniture.

We’ve all learned from personal experience that there is no magic in the turning of a calendar page. The challenge with every new year is that we take our old self into it. Yet every December 31st as the ball drops in Times Square, our hopes rise. This year will be different. This will be the year I persevere. “This year I resolve to…”, fill in the blank. A new year brings the promise of a fresh start. A chance to begin again.

God likes fresh starts. Fresh starts were His idea in the first place. He talks about them all the time. Fresh starts are a big thing with Him. You’d think God, Who is perfect in every way, wouldn’t understand the challenge of taking an old self into a new year. But God really does understand how difficult it is for us to persevere. To hang in there and keep riding. Because He created us. In His words, He “knows our frame and understands we are but dust.”

28 days into the new year. Resolutions meet reality. If you’re riding yourself for not riding your Power Rider, ease up. Then begin again. Better that 2002 be a year of starts and stops and starts than a year of start and stop. God has no limit on fresh starts. He’s always there to help us begin again.

I still have my Power Rider. It’s in the garage. Since Fran Tarkenton isn’t around to use it, maybe I better start.

Again.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for he knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.” – Psalm 103:13-14

Scottsdale – Welcome – “Most Livable City.”

The sign stands twelve inches away from a brown block wall marking the west edge of Green Acres Mortuary and Cemetery.

I laugh every time I drive by it. A Chamber of Commerce welcome to their most livable city and the first sight you see is a mortuary. The irony of “live-ability” is especially thick for me and anyone else who’s attempted to navigate the maze of bureaucracy in the Puzzle Palace known as Scottsdale City Hall. There’s a code number and a restriction ordinance for everything.

It must be difficult for Green Acres Mortuary and Cemetery to stay in business because in Scottsdale you’re not allowed to pass away without the proper permit. Even if you’ve been granted a Planetary Departure License, you’re not allowed to expire within 1,320 feet of any establishment not zoned for cessation of respiration, unless it’s a C-2 or C-3 business in which case you need to submit written agreement from the property owner that upon your demise you will not linger longer than 2 hours and not between the hours of 9 PM and 6 AM. And when you go, you’d best go gently into that good night because if you don’t you’ll be cited for disorderly dying. Removing all the red tape in Scottsdale sounds like a wonderful idea until you realize it’s the only thing holding the city together.

There’s humor in seeing a proclamation of livability set against a backdrop of tombstones. A sign of progress so close to the wall of finality. There’s a fine line between life and death. On one side of the block wall thousands of cars speed back and forth to jobs and homes and sales calls and Little League games. On the other side of the block wall, guys with Weed-Eaters trim Bermuda grass off inscribed granite grave markers; each one a dated proclamation that life does have an endpoint. Sooner or later, the cars on Hayden Road make the turn into Green Acres or a cemetery like it. There’s a fine line between life and death.

There’s also a fine line between living and existing. Genuine living requires our involvement with the people and world around us. Existing requires only our presence. In that light, the grave markers at Green Acres exist. We can point to them and say, “There they are. They were here yesterday. They are here today. They will probably be here tomorrow.” They are present, but not involved. Some days, that’s an apt description of me. Present. Busy, even. But not involved.

It’s easy to confuse living with existing because we too often confuse activity with significance. We think we’re productive because we’re doing so much. Ask 10 people, “How are you doing?” and I bet 6 of them will say, “Busy.” Our daily routine can have us busier than a raccoon at a crawdad hole. But unless that activity involves us in the lives of others in a meaningful way, something more than checking items off a list, busy just gets us tired.

The grave markers at Green Acres exist and never move from their spot in the cemetery. We exist flying all over the place. If neither one of us genuinely interact with people in the process, the only difference between us and a tombstone is that they exist in one place and we exist in many.

Right or wrong, we’re stuck with a certain amount of busy. It’s the world we live in. Meetings and errand running and caring for families are what we day in and day out do. It’s a fine line between living and existing. Though we think we can’t possibly fit another responsibility into our schedules, it really doesn’t take much to stay on the living side of the line. Asking your co-worker how his daughter is adjusting to her first semester of college and thanking the grocery clerk for smiling and getting down on the floor so your kids can climb on you like a jungle gym all get us involved with people. Those aren’t grand gestures. They are common courtesies that, at the end of the day, people remember. When we make it a point to actively care about someone, we don’t exist. We live.

Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ll likely be on the phone again with someone inside the Scottsdale Puzzle Palace. I’ll do my best to inject some humor into my conversation with the city code-talkers. What are you going to do on Monday? How will you inject some meaning into your routine?

“What did I do today that set me apart from the people buried at Green Acres Cemetery?”

It’s not such a dumb question to ask.