We don’t do much in the way of celebrities but couldn’t help noting the death of actor-singer David Cassidy last week (at 67), whose last words were:
“So much wasted time.”
Four powerful words. Four words worth deciphering.
One wonders what he was seeing there on his deathbed and what time in particular he’d wasted, or believed he did. Did he feel he had wasted time, achieving various levels of fame? That the music he played wasn’t worth it? That he had been too preoccupied with his mansion and cars?
One knows only that his words resonate.
How much time do we waste in our lives?
How much time could have been spent focused on God — and our afterlives — that was spent on the frivolous, the passing things?
Did we spend more time in front of the mirror than in front of the Blessed Sacrament, more in idle chatter than prayer, more time worrying about money than counting our blessings?
How much time was lost as far as expressing love and gratitude?
How much time have we lost bickering, arguing politics, immersed in a grudge, gossiping, writing harsh things in e-mails or on the internet (poor “netiquette”)?
How much time have we wasted watching non-consequential things on television or an iPad?
Anything that doesn’t glorify God is a waste of time.
We’ll all see that one day.
How many times have we wasted opportunities to apologize, to compliment, to exhibit charity, kindness? How many opportunities have we let go by to help others — those put in our paths?
They’re questions for all of us.
How much time was wasted that could have been spent visiting those in a nursing home?
How many times did we lack forgiveness, how many times did we let someone’s rudeness or memories of past transgressions ruin our days?
Go the way of blues singer Bessie Smith, who died saying, “I’m going, but I’m going in the Name of the Lord.”
Asked if he had any final words, William Henry Seward, architect of the Alaska Purchase, replied: “Nothing, only ‘love one another.’”
Leonardo da Vinci was modest, saying, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
How much time did we waste on guilt, on lusts of the flesh, on legalism, on fretting over our pasts? Let those go now, they are a waste of time. [See below]
Oh, woe, in those last minutes, if we confabulate and obsess, if we have regrets.
Knowing this, we have the opportunity right now to gain back that lost time, to redo the past, if we offer every precious moment the rest of our lives to the Glory of God.
[resources: A life of Blessings]