9 LIVES

Something my wife said after my latest mishap captured my attention.

“Just because you think you have 9 lives doesn’t mean you won’t run out one day.”

(Indeed, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that every man, woman, boy and girl has their own individual “date with destiny.”)

And while I don’t consider myself anyone’s anything special, it seems that among my peers God has been especially kind to me, and ever so tolerant of my foibles and inconsistencies. And as I reflect back upon my 2/3 of a century upon this planet, and the myriad of “near misses” in which the sand in my personal hour glass might have filled up the bottom, I can only shake my head in abject wonder.

Near misses, indeed.

*A calamity which occurred in my 9^th year of school

An errant vehicle speeding towards my friend and me. Stepping away and taking my friend with me. Turning to see my classmates rudely tossed into the air, and falling left and right along the roadside. A dozen serious injuries. One death.

*An incident at the phosphate mines

Only moments from being swept into eternity by the sweep of a ten ton dragline bucket.

*A rainy highway

Showing off for my friends. Negotiating a curve. Rolling my ’64 powder blue Ford Fairlane. 3 times.

Unscathed

Beth. A 17 year old classmate. A perfectly lovely Christian girl with all the potential in the world. Succumbing to a one vehicle accident.

*Nearing home

Work truck intersecting our pathway, and braking to a stop. Roof-top ladder propelled towards my passenger window. Decapitation in the momentary offing. Ladder sliding across the pavement and coming to rest just feet before us.

*Six feet in the air

Slipping off my own ladder. Slamming onto unyielding concrete. For all my trouble, a broken ankle, and subsequent surgery.

*A suspicious mole 

Diagnosed with melanoma. Extensive surgery. Disfigurement.

Somewhat the worse for wear

Johnny. My 20 year old cousin. A rookie soldier. Vietnam. A mortar round. A painful death. Yielding up the ghost before he ever had a chance to live.

*Nearing an intersection 

Car failing to stop. Wife locking up brakes. Children peering plaintively at us from the back seat of that tiny, blue vehicle. I on the passenger side reaching over. Commandeering the steering wheel. Navigating my way behind the offending automobile. 180 degree spin. Back where front should be. Slowing, slowing, slowing. A grassy roadside shoulder now securely beneath my ungainly green Oldsmobile.

*My father and a 12 pound bass 

Opening the back porch door. My oblivious enthusiasm. Running through a double glass door. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.

*A short bike ride 

Too short. 2 wheels. 4 legs. A bike, a man, a dog. Flying headlong over handlebars. Slamming onto black asphalt. A broken arm. (A bit pre-occupied to concern myself with the fate of the offending beast).

(And lo, and behold yesterday, as I flew down the sidewalk on my speedy new bike; history repeated itself. Slamming into a curb, I (not so) gracefully sailed over the handlebars, and rudely landed on my knees, and hands, and... head).

Safe, though not necessarily sound

Ronnie. A high school classmate. Old, but not elderly. ALS. Lou Gerhig’s Disease. Death by inches.

What are we to do with the seeming capriciousness of Providence?

Why are some afforded miracle after miracle, chance after chance, whereas others are taken “first time out,” or at least denied the opportunity to live out their natural “four score years?” (I have, at times, referred to this seeming paradoxical unfairness as, “A Providential Lack of Providence.”)

I think a friend of mine, who, not so long ago, endured the unendurable, said it best.

(His or her) “work here was simply done.”

I can only, as I have previously alluded, wonder why God has afforded me the opportunity to live out a full and productive life, affording me grace after grace, chance after chance, near miss after near miss, whereas so many of my friends, classmates and peers have been denied that providential privilege.

There’s a poignant scene in the movie, “Saving Private Ryan” in which the hero of the saga offers up his life for the life of another. And in his waning moments he summons the soldier for whom he has offered up the last full measure of devotion, and with his dying breath is heard to utter,

“Earn it. Earn it.”

Perhaps for those of us who have been granted the grace of a long and potentially productive life, we ought to be ‘earning it’ on a daily basis. I think we owe it to them who went before us, and who, in some vicarious manner depend on you and I to do what they might have done; had they been granted the time and wherewithal to do it.

“Before I ever took my first breath, you planned every day of my life.” (Psalms 139:16)

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 35. Copyright pending

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