Choir Notes

Make Some Difference
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4243

Anytime is a good time to think about the purpose of our life, to assess where we are and where we’re going. But we definitely seem to do more of that at the beginning of a new year, as we make resolutions or set goals to do things differently. In the process, we might consider this counsel from American writer Leo Rosten: "The purpose of life is not to be happy. … It is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you lived.”1

Useful. Honorable. Compassionate. These are not just lofty words—they are keys to living well. Put into action, they build character, shape a positive outlook, and bless the lives of others as well as our own.

Consider the efforts of Don Schoendorfer, an engineer who, during a visit to Morocco saw a disabled beggar woman drag herself across the street, almost like a snake, because she had lost the use of her legs. He never forgot her plight and finally decided to do something about it. For the next several years, he spent his free time, usually early in the morning before work, in his garage tinkering on the design of a cost-efficient wheelchair.

He presented his creation, made from a common plastic lawn chair and inexpensive bike tires, to an 11-year-old in India. The young boy’s mother said through a translator, "Bless you for this chariot.” Today, more than 500,000 wheelchairs have been delivered to those desperately in need in 77 developing nations. Don can speak from personal experience about being compassionate, about making a difference.2

As we make our plans for the future, may we choose to be useful, honorable, and compassionate. We will then find that our life has indeed mattered, that it has made some difference that we have lived.

1 "The Myths by Which We Live,” The Rotarian, Sept. 1965, 55.
2 See Stephen R. Covey, Everyday Greatness (2006), 189–91; see also Abby Sewell, "A Moving Image Got This Wheelchair Maker Rolling,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/10/local/la-me-0710-beliefs-wheelchair-20100710.