June 4, 1987

Scientists, theologians, and poets have struggled for centuries for an understanding of life. Moralist ponder life's beginning and its end. We guard against aborting life almost as vigorously as we guard against euthanasia.
Life is sacred, something to be preserved, and yet it remains a mystery. Scientists explain it in terms of amino acids and electric charges. Theologians discuss its worth in terms of destiny.
Poets are neither so basic nor so eternal. Robert Browning wrote,"I count life just a stuff to try the soul's strength on..." Keats called human life, "the war, the deeds, the disappointments, the anxiety, imagination's struggles, far and nigh..."
But poetic phrases don't explain life -- life defies grand exaltations. When the pretense, scientific verbiage, theological summations, and poetry is striped away what remains is a steady stream of insignificant events. Taken together, these easily forgotten experiences form life.
Life is trying to remember the last time you changed the oil in the car. It is telling a joke and forgetting the punch line. Life is a wedding band that has cut off the circulation in your ring finger.
Life is a lawnmower that won't start, a fight that will, and a payment plan that won't end. It is a bruised fingernail, a weak knee, a tennis elbow. It is tripping on the family dog and spending a week in the hospital recuperating. Life is placing a wreath of flowers on the grave of a grandmother.
Major events give life ambition, but the trivial give it texture and definition.
Life is defined by carsickness on a vacation, a scar on the foot, a new shirt on the first day of school, a solid hit at the baseball game. Life is scoring a long touchdown and having it called back for a penalty, having a home run curve foul, missing a shot at the buzzer.
Life is sitting on the bench thinking about getting into the game. It is the bad-hop grounder that chips your tooth. It's the pain in your lower back when your playing days are over.
Life is hail and snowdrifts and lightning flashes and being forced into the basement by the wind. It is mornings in coats and long johns and it is shirtless afternoons. It is watching a thundercloud billow over a ripe wheat field. Life is finding out your camping tent is not waterproof.
Life is finding that special person who laughs at your wit even when you're not funny. It is sitting up late at night with sick children. It is a kiss before supper. Life is making mistakes and feeling so sorry your bones ache.
We are all so busy with the process of living we sometimes fail to recognize life.
Life is wondering how you would look with a different hairstyle. It is longing for the days when you had hair. It is standing in front of a mirror gazing at your own reflection. Life is wondering whose life it is you are leading.
Life is a difficult, glorious enterprise, which brings bruises and bliss. Thomas Hobbs called it "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." But perhaps it's just solitary enough to make us appreciate a friend, just nasty and brutish enough to make us enjoy the tranquil evening, just short enough to make us delight in the time we have.... ~T.Stucky