From Toast of the Town...

to Just Toast. I wish I could say I wrote that, but it's actually something I saw on-line linking to a story about Rudy Giuliani's recent withdrawal from the Presidential campaign. Still, there's nothing I like better than a clever, well-turned phrase. Seems a pity to squander it on the washed-out aspirations of a washed-up Mayor. Even if he was the Mayor of New York City.

Maybe the Romans did say it better. Sic Gloria Transit Mundi Usually translated as "All Glory is Fleeting," but perhaps better expressed as "thus goes worldly glory." Three things all human beings have in common: each of us is unique, none of us is perfect, all of us are going to die. It's important to remember in our moments of triumph, when we stand out above the admiring crowd, that in the end we all become one with the dust from whence we came. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, "so it goes." The details are merely incidental.

And yet, God is also in the details. In the face of death and with painfully-full awareness of our own imperfections, we remain the fortunate recipients of this amazing gift of life itself: this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live, to love, to indulge in the pleasures of our senses and explore wherever our curious imaginations may lead us -- to weigh the worth and value of all we encounter, make judgments, make choices, make a difference in the world. We are born blind, helpless and completely dependent upon the care of others, aware only of the power of our own appetites. How we live from that moment forward to the moment of our death is the product of a great many things beyond our control, but ultimately we alone are charged with the privilege and the duty, the right and the responsibility, the opportunity and the obligation to determine what our lives will mean in the greater scheme of the universe.

Kinda seems a little overwhelming, doesn't it? But you know, that's just the way life is sometimes....