Every morning at Sunrise, Philipa, Macedonia father to Alexander the Great instructed one of his servants to come into his room and to wake him up. But this was not a normal wake up call. The servants would enter his room, draw the curtains, and say to him. Philip, remember that you must die.
This man was the king and the military ruler of the greatest civilization on earth. But each day he chose to remind himself of the one thing that most of us want to forget, that we will die eye. I like to imagine the modern equivalent of this. You are walking out of your house. And the last thing that your spouse says to you is, I hope you have a good day.
Don’t forget that you’re going to die. But this one ritual is what Philipa Macedonia accredited all of his success to
This ritual reminds me of the inscriptions on sundials. Sundials always have these brooding, dark aphorisms inscribed on them. Like, stop and consider it is later than you think, or our last hour is hidden from us so that we watch them all.
The book of Hebrews says it like this. Each person is destined to die. Once and after that comes judgment. Ecclesiastes says, for everything, there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die
while uncomfortable. It’s important to remember that our time here is temporary. There’s only so much time to tell someone they. You love them or to let go of that grudge you’ve been holding. There’s only so much time to chase your dreams or to spend time with family.
The point of this ritual is simple and remembering that your death is coming, you will live.
This has been everyday miracles by hope, mindfulness, and prayer.
In the year 1818, a 26-year-old Catholic priest by the name of Joseph Moore was preparing for the Christmas Eve service at his church in the Austrian Alps. And while cleaning up the church in preparation, he found out that his organ had broken. This was not good. I mean, here’s this young guy that is probably new to this church.
If you’ve ever gone through art history class, you’re probably familiar with a painting called The Light of the World. It was painted by the British artist Holman Hunt, and hangs in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It’s one of the most iconic religious paintings in history. The painting depicts Jesus standing outside of a small, dilapidated cottage.
I was recently listening to the U2 album, all that you Can’t Leave Behind, and I came across a song called Grace. The lyrics say this, grace takes the blame, covers the shame, removes the stain, but once was hurt, but once was friction. What left a mark? No longer stings because grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
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