I heard something profound in church today; a rarity. It’s not that profound things don’t get said or happen in church. It’s just that more often the profundity is right up there with a Donald Trump tweet. Ok?

Here’s the profound statement. Ready?
“Live the dash.”

That’s it.
“Live the dash.”

Ever read a tombstone? On each there’s birth dates and death dates with, wait for it… a dash in between. That dash encompasses our whole life. Everything we do, everything we are, all our successes and all our failures. That dash is our life.

We can’t control our date of birth and we can do precious little to control our date of death but we can control how we “live the dash”.

Too many people are obsessed with the second date. Some fear death, others don’t because they uttered a magic incantation to a God who loves us sooooo much that if we don’t say that incantation he will torture us forever for sins committed here on earth. Like ISIS on steroids.

Others don’t give a rodent’s rear (get it?) about the second date because they are too busy going through life in search of their next orgasm.

The fact is, the only thing we can influence – even control – with any degree of certainty is how we live our lives. The dash. We can’t control events but we can our behavior. We can’t control who loves us but we can whom we love and how we love. We can’t change the world, but we can work to be a blessing to others. We can, in short, show up.

The dash. How long it is isn’t up to us. How we live it is.

Live the dash.