I know, Memorial Day is about those who laid down their lives for our freedom, and we should give it all the honor it is due. But there is a lot of mourning in America at this particular moment, and I want to be sensitive to the families of nearly 100,000 Americans for whom the pain of their most recent loss is no doubt overshadowing everything else.
I wish we weren’t in a place where the current crisis hijacks nearly everything, including the honoring of the sacrifices of the past. But the hard truth is, by the end of next week the pandemic will have claimed more American lives than the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq combined; and shortly thereafter we will surpass the total loss of American lives in World War I.
All loss—be it for a noble cause or seemingly senseless—all loss weighs heavy on those of us who remain and leaves us with lots of questions and very few answers. But in the spirit of Memorial Day there is one question that perhaps we can answer:
How is the loss of any life best honored by those of us who remain?
The only answer I know is this: Take hold of that life which remains and live it to the fullest.
Let death and loss remind us that the clock is ticking on our own mortality. Let loss remind us that even the longest life is but a moment, and that perhaps it might be wise to pause and check in on our own priorities as often as possible, and make sure this moment we have in our hands right now is being spent in the best way possible.
And on Memorial Day as well, we should consider the freedoms won for us, and consider using those freedoms for their highest purpose—to be just and kind and compassionate; to live and thrive, never at the expense of others, but striving at every moment to awaken and obey the better angels of our nature.
Abraham Lincoln put it this way, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Those are the words of a great American and a truly great man. In contrast, I am not a great man. I’m just a friendly voice, here with you on this Sunday morning.
But with whatever voice I have been given I’m going to continue to use it whenever I can to remind you that even though our time here is but a moment … it can be an amazing moment … if we allow loss to test us, and sift us, so that what remains of us when the storm passes is ready to get busy building ourselves a beautiful life.