The Four Dimensions of Life or Build Your Life Like a Wall

There once was an old Yankee farmer who was out in his fields building a stone wall to separate his pastures. Eventually, someone came down the road and looked out at the man and stopped to ask him a challenging question. He asked the farmer,
” Aren’t you afraid that there will be a strong gust of wind and your wall will fall over?” “Ha!” Said the old Yankee farmer.” I am building my wall like this on purpose. This wall I am building is two feet high and three feet wide, if the wind does come, and knock it over, then it will be a foot higher than it was before!”
Well, the dimensions of life are something like that farmer and that wall. If your life is built right, then you will not have to worry when the cold storm winds blow. Because even if life blows you over, you will land, so that you will stand, a foot taller than you were before.
The purpose for one’s life is found in its Length… Breath… Height… Depth…. Live your life long, not as the years are measured, but as your wisdom is measured. Live your life wide. Keep on growing all the time and as long as you do you will be useful, interested, interesting, serene, and secure.
Live you life deep. Then the greatest storms in the human condition will not blow you down even as they are toppling others who made a more shallow life for themselves.

And above all, Live your life high. Emerson said, “Hitch your wagon to a star”, and reach out toward that star all the time. Life doesn’t care whether you actually attain or reach all of it. But life does care that you try to reach it.
Build your life according to these dimensions, with adequate length, breath, depth and height, and even when the great winds of chance and fate blow, it won’t matter at all, because once the winds calms, you will be one foot higher than you were before!
attributed to The Reverend Walemar Argow, Sr.

Posted Pastoral Reflections |