Choir Notes

The Highest Good
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4269

Those with a few more years of life can teach us much if we will listen and observe. They can teach us how to grow through losses instead of being defeated by them. They can teach us how to appreciate life’s simple gifts and daily pleasures, how to value people instead of things, how to treasure that which matters most.

Perhaps one of the most poignant lessons we can learn from those with more wisdom and experience is what it means to live a good life. They are living proof that life consists not of postponing the effects of aging but rather of giving oneself in service to others.

A wise professor learned this truth, or was reminded of it, as he watched his parents grow old. He observed: "Aging and death are not the worst things that can happen to us. The worst thing is not to grow old but to live a life bereft of meaning, goodness and love, a life characterized by coldness, self-centeredness and bitterness. . . . The highest good is found not in physical longevity but in persons who transcend themselves in love, kindness, care and compassion for others, and in doing so grow in likeness to God.”1

Life’s banquet is filled with opportunities, both bitter and sweet. As we partake of all that life offers, we can become better; we can find purpose, and we can serve others. For without meaning we drift, without goodness we distrust, without love we grow cold. Now is the time to seek more fully the highest good in life.

Of course, each season of life is different, and each presents varied challenges and lessons. But always there are opportunities to open our hearts to others in love and kindness, in care and compassion, and thereby discover life’s highest good.

1 Paul J. Wadell, "The Call Goes On: Discipleship and Aging,” The Christian Century, Apr. 14, 2011, http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-03/call-goes.