Nothing Ever Really Matters Very Much

I was thinking of this sage advice of my mother tonight at mass. I don't remember when, exactly. Maybe one of the hymns got me thinking. It's so easy to think that your plans for the future will bear fruit, and because of that, you'll have a life on easy street at some point. But then--yeah, it must have been the hymn--trouble could come and ruin your plans and leave you in trouble. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

So I got to thinking, maybe it's best to think, "we're going to die." That's the truth, isn't it? We're going to die. So why not get used to the idea. And go to the altar, for that's the way to prepare for death, and that's really the only thing that matters. Nothing else really does.

That's life. Here I see that Petersen has some great advice for pastors starting out, along these lines, which reminded me of what I was thinking just an hour or so earlier.

Laying plans if fine, as far as it goes, but let's not get carried away.

Nothing matters, really, nothing at all . . . except being with Christ; and, as it happens, when you're at that altar, that's where you are.