FAY ROWE

I just read a note from a young man named Benjamin. He's a writer.

Benjamin isn't published yet, but I've heard him read from his manuscript and he's good. He has a story and a distinct voice, and the heart to get both on paper and out into the world.

His note today was about a verse of scripture that spoke to him this year at Write! Canada, a verse that he decided wasn't all that encouraging. It was the one that talks about us having "threescore years and ten"-- the later years full of trouble.

Mind you, I think that was directed specifically to the wilderness travellers who had decided they wouldn't enter the promised land, so I don't get too bent out of shape by it at my tender age.

But point taken: We aren't here forever.

But then Benjamin noted something that the psalmist goes on to say, repeatedly, "establish the work of our hands for us." It almost sounds as if he's desperate for it.

Now, that makes perfect sense. The psalmist sees time going by too quickly, and there isn't much of it, and he feels an urgency to work.

Truth is, as I see more wrinkles show up and the grey hair lightening, I find as a writer/teacher I'm more in a hurry to get "words" out there. Maybe when we realize the passing of time, whether we're young like Benjamin or have a few more years behind us than he, we become more and more anxious to accomplish something, to leave something here. To give something. Something of value.

And that makes sense too. We were made in the image of a Creator and a Giver.

I remember a few years ago when my mortality took on more pronounced reality. I looked, then, at what I was leaving behind and wondered why I hadn't even tried to do what had been in my heart to do--to write What's In A Name. Thankfully, I recognized the little nudges I was getting in that direction, and took action. I've written much more in the several years since then, and still feel nudges.

As for Benjamin, I was impressed and happy to see that this young man has learned, early, that our strength, and the ability to leave something good behind, is found in the Source from whom we came.

To be sure, the Source from whom springs the desire.

He is willing and able to answer that prayer; the work is not ours alone.

Surely, when all is quiet, our hearts know it's true.