Doomsday or the Best Day?

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday."

I used to listen to Harold Camping on Family Radio almost every evening. He was known as the Bible answer man, and he did, indeed, have many answers to intriguing questions. However, we now know that he did not have the right answer concerning the timing of Judgement Day.

For some people, though, it was the end of the world. The people who died as a result of the Joplin tornado had no more time to live. This, it seems to me, is the key to life--to live each day and each moment as if they are our last ones.

When St. Francis of Assisi was asked what he would do if he knew that a given day was the end of the world, he answered, "I would just keep hoeing my garden." I like that. We must capture each moment and live it to the full. It truly may be our last.

To get caught up in speculations regarding the end of the world and the last days is a waste of time. It is this day--this moment--that counts.