Last Times

In a recent dream, Fiora stepped from her porch and mounted her favorite horse just as she had many times before. Cameras rolled as she began to walk her horse down the drive. Suddenly it reared up and twisted tossing its octogenarian rider to the ground. She rolled several feet down the slope of her yard ending face down. It might have been the last time Fiora ever rode a horse, but it wasn’t. Within a few days the soreness had gone and there she was sitting tall in the saddle once again. In the dream Fiora’s fall wasn’t her last ride, but it might have been.

It was no dream the day Arnold Palmer walked up the eighteenth fairway with his grandson carrying the bag alongside him. Arnie had graced the fairways of Augusta National many times. The Masters had been his stage, a place where his rowdy army had gathered to cheer some of the charges that made him famous. But the cheers were different this time. This time the applause from an appreciative crowd rang in Arnie’s ears like never before. This time his walk up the eighteenth fairway was his last in Master’s competition. Last times happen for everyone.

Elvis Pressley once answered his last encore and sang his last song; John Wayne made his last movie; and Arnold Palmer walked his last fairway in competition. Everything reaches the point of a last time.

Sometimes last victories are celebrated and last games played are mourned. But as notable as they may be, perhaps too much importance is placed on those last things. It is not the last of the notable things we do on earth that are deserving, but the lasting ones.

Arnie’s Army will disband, his championships will drift into the annals of history, and the applause of the crowd along the 18th fairway will fade away. But the character exemplified in the way Arnie played the game will be lasting through the generations, the hospital he built in memory of his wife will serve humanity for years to come; and the love he expressed when he chose his grandson to carry the bag in his final round planted a lasting memory that will live a lifetime in the heart of an impressionable young man.

Last times will always be important markers in the journey through life. But lasting times…?

Well, those are among the treasures we store in Heaven.                                                                                                  

You are the light of the world,

Richard+ 

richard@reflectingthesavior.org

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