When I was in college people would tell me that it was not ‘real life.’ Everyone had a definition of ‘real life’ – it began when one was married, or had a job, or had children.
We promote this idea of provisional living – during the pandemic we say we aren’t living ‘real life.’ Someone told me we should now wish one another “until 121” instead of the biblical 120 years, since 2020 does not count.
But it is not so. Every day and every week and every year is equally ‘real.’ Kindergarten is as real as graduate school which is as real as raising a child or having a grandchild. The great scholar of Jewish mysticism, Gershom Scholem, said that Jews who waited for the Messiah were ‘living life in deferment.’ But life does not wait for those who think they can hold it in abeyance. It is real and it is now.
Do not wait to live. Each day during the pandemic is as real as the days that will follow. Before you must surrender your soul back to the One who created it, live each day with the seriousness and joy and purpose for which we were made.
