Category: Life in Christ

PDL – “Aimless Distraction”

The phrase “aimless distraction” hit home with me.

I’m working through Rick Warren’s 40 Day Spiritual Adventure – The Purpose Driven Life. This is my second time through, but a lot has changed in my life since 2005… retirement, life threatening illnesses, nearly total material loss, death of my faithful dog, and increasing physical limitations. The last seven years have been pretty lean and eternity looks a lot closer now than it did before. In fact, I just checked out some actuarial tables and discovered that I have only a 50/50 chance of living for another 14 years until age 86.

So the big question for me is “What do I do with the rest of my life… the remaining time I have here on earth?” It’s a big question. And that’s when the phrase “aimless distraction” hit me.

Warren is talking about the benefits of a Purpose Driven Life (PDL) and notes: “Knowing your purpose focuses your life.” He goes on to quote Henry David Thoreau’s observation that people without purpose live lives of “quiet desperation” and notes that today a better description would be “aimless distraction.”

Aimless distraction… playing “Trivial Pursuit” with my life? It’s true. I spend way too much time on the internet, playing Sudoku, and watching foreign Netflix movies. Those were lean year distractions for me. I need to look forward to the next seven fat years… I need to prepare for eternity. And that’s no “aimless distraction.”

But how? Stay tuned.

“162 Reasons to Marry” – Pat Fagan, Anne Dougherty, and Miriam McElvain February 8, 2012

“Marriage is the foundational relationship for all of society. All other relationships in society stem from the father-mother relationship, and these other relationships thrive most if that father-mother relationship is simultaneously a close and a closed husband-wife relationship. Good marriages are the bedrock of strong societies….”

“The future of the human race and all its component societies is embodied in each newborn. Whether that newborn grows to be a strong, capable adult depends much on the marriage of his parents. Whether he is physically strong; whether she is intelligent; whether he is hardworking or a dropout; whether she will be mentally healthy and happy; whether he will be more educated; whether she will marry in her own turn; whether he will be a taxpayer or a drain on the commons; whether she enjoys her own sexuality to the full; whether he worships and prays; whether she has children and how many; whether he finishes high school and goes to college or learns a trade; whether she is law-abiding; whether he grows old with a family surrounding him-all these most desirable outcomes (common goods) are strongly connected to the strength of the marriage of that child’s parents.”

“The findings herein demonstrate that in marriage are contained all the five basic institutions, all the basic tasks, of society: family, church, school, marketplace and government….  How [adults learn to] do that will depend much on what they experienced in growing up in their families of origin….”

“The future strength of our nation depends on good marriages to yield strong revenues, good health, low crime, high education, and high human capital. As the following enumeration shows, smart parents and smart societies pay attention to the state and strength of marriage….”

Click on link for the – 162 Reasons to Marry.