A Life in Five Inches

My dad is not a reader of books or magazines. One of the lessons he taught me by example as I was growing up was to read the newspaper. I don't think we have ever had a conversation about it, but I have still acquired that part of his daily routine into my own. My brother has as well. I feel unprepared for the day, almost lost, if I cannot read the daily paper. I get up early these days, often before five, so that I can have time to read the paper in addition to other morning jobs before going to work. Going to the gym is usually first, although I have faltered in that duty lately.

My brother-in-law recently told me that he specifically dislikes and avoids newsprint. He doesn't like the feel of it in his hands. His news sources are all internet based. I read internet news, too, but feeling the newsprint is part of the ritual of becoming educated about the current, changing world. The feel of the press connects me to the process and art of news production and to its history. Bill Clinton wrote that any man who reads three newspapers daily can hold his own in a conversation with any politician or policy maker.

One of the sections I read with more attention than some others is the obituaries. This is an unusual area of journalism, to be sure. I've read about the craft of writing these ultra-condensed biographies. Often papers today submit obits written by family authors, but this is no less difficult. On average, the obituary runs to five column inches.

How can a life with all of its triumphs, successes, challenges, and countless trials be captured in such an insignificant literary burp? Some obits are elegantly composed, nearly poetic. Some in our society evidently are worthy of greater volume on the page than others. I think of biographies or autobiographies written about great men of history--Churchill, Grant, extending volume after volume. What makes the life of one more or less worthy of our collective memory? Length of accomplishments alone is not the answer, because some of our greatest lives, in detail at least, remain largely unknown. The known events of the lives of the greatest religious founders, Jesus, Confucious, Mohammed, Abraham, Siddharta Gautama, each would comprise a fairly short listing. So the impact of the things we do is certainly as important as the variety of activities that fill our lives.

What kind of impact do we create in the lives of those we enter into? If it is positive, efforts that increase the greater good-- what must be the divine mission-- then life is good. Everything we say or do has power enough to make better those lives around us. Perhaps it is enough to know from the obituary of another that the life lived was a good one.

History will continue to record the details and exploits of great men and women. We will write lengthy tomes about the heroes and villains among us, and of those who preserve or destroy nations. These will be studied and debated, some eventually forgotten. Those of us who lead humbler lives will be given our allotted five inches, maybe a bit more or less. If we have added something more to the greater good as we wander through the fog, then this will suffice.

In the body of writings devoted to Christianity, there are a few stories told of singular events of individuals. In some passages a person is only named one time. During the Passion a woman named Veronica wiped the bloody face of Jesus as he walked toward his crucifixion. She took considerable risk of being beaten and arrested by the soldiers for doing this. She is not described as being a follower of Jesus elsewhere, or as a disciple, or even one who might be connected to those who were. She exercised her power of compassion to offer a small comfort to another whom she viewed simply as a suffering and condemned man.

What if each of us could be known for at least one act of bold and selfless compassion?

Live well.