Well Spent

Lately I've been running through my mental thesaurus, looking for fresh ways to express fatigue. I'm simply tired of saying that I'm tired, so I thought perhaps that a subtle shift in vocabulary might add creative nuance to my routine of self-expression. (After all, if the Eskimos have ten words for "snow", perhaps I should be able to describe my primary habitat with a bit more diversity.) So far I've come up with exhausted, depleted, drained, weary, worn out, burnt out, fried, empty, out of gas, and spent. (I'm sure that many of you can add to the list, from the depths of your own experience.)

Today, it's the word "spent" that captures the sensation best. While there are many ways to convey the loss of energy and resources, "spent" conveys that loss with an implicit suggestion of gain. When I spend time, money, or energy -- even when I spend all that I have -- I spend it ON something, or FOR something. There is a purpose in view, a focal object or cause, for which the resources are exchanged, with at least a belief or perception that the thing being gained has more value that the resource being spent. Surely, I must believe -- or at least perceive -- that something is being gained in exchange for all that I am spending. Otherwise I would doubtless despair. In fact, it is precisely on those days and in those hours when the purpose is least visible, or least credible, that despair threatens most. I do not want to waste my life; I want to spend it, and I want to spend it well.

In the hotel breakfast area this morning, the television was tuned to CNN, where video footage showed the American Cemetery in France, on this the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy Invasion. I've been to the beaches of Normandy, many years ago. I've seen the seemingly endless rows and columns of grave markers, mostly Christian crosses with Stars of David interspersed, which enumerate an immeasurable sacrifice. I will never forget the impression; I will never be able to express it in words.

Those lives were spent. Most were unthinkably brief, having barely begun the productive years of adulthood. So much more they could have given, contributed, shared, had their years been extended beyond that bloody day. And yet they gave all -- not only all they had, but all that could be given. Wasted? I think not. Purposeful? Beyond question. Exchanged for something of greater value? History testifies that it is so.

I do not wish that anyone should have to die for their cause, but I think it worse to die without one. Attempting to extend one's own life -- for no other reason than to postpone death -- seems to me the most meaningless of all endeavors. I know that my life shall someday end, as surely as I know that this day will end. When it does, I hope to think that it was not wasted, but spent. Well spent.

Spend the time that you have. Spend the money that you have. Spend the life that you have.

Spend it well, so that in the end, you may be well spent.


"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." -- Luke 9:24


-- Brother Tom