You have lived many moons, years, sunsets untold, seasons gone by, new ones just beginning, winters and springs.  And just this one day, just for a slice of detailed contemplation, what have you learned here on Earth: This Spiritual Boot Camp?

            What if you took out all the fine-tuned clichés, the overused platitudes, like love all, or give more, or care more, or smile, or dream bigger, or forgive or have more gratitude?

And what if you pulled a rabbit out of your own hat, came up with your own wisdom, your own truisms that you absolutely know are true, your very own paradigms for living that can be unique, passed down to Johnny, to the grandkids, to your kids, inventive ways of skinning a cat, of seeing and leaving a message for all of humankind to be thoughtful about, so as to “wring out the old and bring in the knew,” to extrapolate a proverb and leave it on the altar, next to the Athenian oracle, buried near the Red Seas, for all to pick up, examine and wonder about, stuck somewhere between bewilderment and astonishment, along the edge of the Ganges, or the Nile, or the Amazon, so that the local natives can whisper in awe that Kahil Gibran was here, that Socrates appeared out of nowhere, or the Virgin Mary just seemed to show up in the fog outside of Dubrovnik.

            What have you gleaned from this wonderful life, that you can enact today, put into motion, with real life purpose, with resolve and introspection, that you can take to the bank, and not shank, that you can inspire a generation, a population… verbiage unknown, pithy sayings that are scrolled on cave walls near the fringes of mankind, where those who live after you will reply in email, in glee, in happenstance and stuttered words that this was a quote to note, a quotation for the nation, a lost piece of wisdom that all will now have access to, like the dead sea scrolls deciphered, the tablet from the mount, the recorded words of Buddha or Mohammed or Jesus, in some alien twist left by an advanced race beneath Carlsbad on a CD, maybe found along the Seine or in the remote areas  near Moab.

            Think for a distant moment: What has this life taught you, that you can live and share and give and inspire your brethren, that, most possibly, it will be a fine and upstanding day?

            So as I search my databanks, the short profundities, the high-wire aspirations, as I wonder, is there a single truism to live by, a profound anecdote, an idea that surely will help all of our ancestors and predecessors?  Hmm.  Here goes.

            “Eat First.  Then be a Christian.”

That’s all I got.