The average life expectancy in the UK is 81 years, equating to 972 months, 4223 weeks, 29565 days. I don’t know about you, but that seems short to me! A lifetime of love, laughter, sadness, joy, grief, family, friends, work, play – all wrapped up into less than 30 thousand days on earth?
As I write this post, I have spent a mere 9,271 days on earth. I have spent that time growing up, going to school, making friends, being a family girl, studying, making mistakes, worrying, changing. Looking back it is hard to remember even half of it, which makes me reevaluate what has really mattered.
A friend (hi Katy) recently introduced me to a podcast called The Liturgists, and particularly a song by them called Vapor, which is accompanied by a meditation piece. It sounds weird and maybe a little hippy I know, but give me a chance to explain. The 10 minute recording talks about our insignificance in a universe that is bigger than we could possibly understand. As we stand here we are a small speck of dust in time & space, we are one among billions, the things we worry about are nothing, the things we know will soon be lost, the entirety of human existence is ever growing and disappearing all at the same time – our entire world around us is vapour.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
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I both love & struggle to think of the world in this way. “Is it depressing or freeing?” I think it’s so easy to make it the first option, but if in the grand scheme of things we are a flicker & then gone, it means we need to worry about nothing. Our money concerns, worries about our family, stresses regarding employment – it all is meaningless, it is all here now and then it will be gone. This gives us the opportunity to slow down, to re-evaluate, to grab hold of those good things in our life and enjoy this time for absolutely all it is worth, to appreciate everything for what it is, to let go of the superficial – because soon it will all fade, and our temporary time on earth will open up into an eternity in heaven. Earthly life gone in an instant, perfect heavenly life forever before us.
“How many of our moments on the pale blue dot do we waste worrying & stressing about the vapour?”
Recently my worrying time has been absolutely consumed by fundraising, and for some reason that is really hard for me to admit. I don’t want anyone to think that I am fundraising because I am living life as normal and spending the money that I earn on other things. I have saved HARD over the past few months to try and pay off a LOT of student loans, & at the end of this month I hope to be able to do that (if there has ever been time for a hallelujah, it is right about now friends lol). Any money I make from now on will be directly added to my WR fund, and more so than ever God’s faithfulness has been so evident in the form of friends and family coming alongside me in their support. This subject of vapour has been timely placed into my life because I needed a gentle nudge to stop being anxious, I can tell you that worry is making this girl very weary. My worries are smaller than His plan & He is faithful to the very last number.
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11 months
334 days
8,016 hours
480,960 minutes
28,857,600 seconds
.. & then this journey of the World Race will all be gone too. So today my pledge is to STOP the worry, to remember the vapour, to trust entirely in the process, to enjoy the journey, to throw my whole spirit into loving my team, to fundraise the money I need to go on this trip and to trust God the whole way through.
“Life on planet earth is a gift, and you only get it for as long as you get it & then the match gets blown out. So set your hearts, not on things of earth, not on the vapor, but let go. Fully open your heart to both the Gift and the Giver. The Mystery. The Beauty. That in which we live and move and have our being. That in which we call God – The Oneness who holds the Vapor together – who somehow bring meaning into the meaningless.”
Vapour Meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7bgMUykvsE
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy & my burden is light” Matt 11:28-30
Chloe x
