Are You Willing to Bet Your Soul?

I'm sitting here toward the end of the afternoon listening to a cassette tape...yes, a cassette tape...that I made some years ago. I took the liberty of hooking my computer audio output to the cassette recorder we have and recorded some of my favorite tunes from over the years. You might be surprised, if you don't know me well, just what they are.

Music Box Dancer, Nadia's Theme, the theme from “Gunsmoke,” I Hope You Dance, the theme from Captain Kangaroo, Both Sides Now, Downtown, and others are here. I'm really not finished with the tape yet, and probably will put some more on it, or convert it to digital somehow and listen to it that way. But the songs that are on here are those which are indelibly etched into my memory, and each evokes a particular thought. If I thought I had the room and the time, I could write down each thought and memory, but you probably would be bored to tears.

I use this as an intro to this blog to try to get you to recall music from your past, that evoke strong emotions, pleasant or not, within your soul. Music has a unique way of doing that, as you probably already know. There's something about hearing music for many of us, just as for some of us there's something about observing artwork or reading a well-written piece of prose or poetry that brings back a flood of emotion and memory.

There can be a danger in this, however. It's not wrong to remember. It's not a bad thing to go back in time,for a time. The danger is if we begin to live in the past as if it's the present. The danger is if we lose track of the reality that is the present. We dare not...we cannot...go back and live as our lives once were. Much as we'd like to be back in the home where we grew up, with mom, dad, and the siblings all gathered around the black-and-white TV watching the Red Skelton show, it just isn't going to happen.

Like it or not, we are in the present, and the present is ever changing...ever encroaching on the future. The future that was ten seconds ago is now the present, and now is the past. It flies by so quickly, we hardly are able to catch a glimpse of it before it's gone. Like it or not, we are moving through time to some destination. For, you see, time will not always be for us. There will come a time (if I may put it that way), when we will no longer experience time. Our impending meeting with death will come upon us all.

Some of us believe that when that happens, not only will we no longer experience death, we won't experience anything because we will cease to be. Others of us believe in some kind of afterlife that is different from what we are now experiencing, but nevertheless will be timeless. Still others of us believe that we eventually will be reincarnated as some kind of living creature...human or animal. And that the cycle is unending, which is another way of saying it's timeless.

Whatever you may believe, know that at some time, we will no longer experience time. And while you're thinking about these kinds of serious things, think seriously about your relationship with the One who created time and created you. Creation demands a creator. You are a creation. And regardless of what you may or may not believe about things, there is but one Truth. There is but one Correct. There is but one Way. There can be many falsehoods, but only one Truth. Are you willing to bet your soul on what you believe now? Or do you think you should take another look? Your choice.