Melting Snow

Memorial Day Weekend: Contemplation of Life

Istiqlál Independence), 9 ‘Aẓamat (Grandeur) 175 B.E. - Friday, May 25, 2018

The three-day Memorial Day weekend is here. I know that people usually considered Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, as the three-day weekend; however, it's Friday. People will attempt to get off work early to start the weekend drive to wherever they are going, or head for the malls to take advantage of the Memorial Day sales. I will not be going out of Las Vegas! I will not be going to a mall! I might or might not visit Mama's grave, I haven't discussed that with my roommate yet. I doubt we will be going very far from home because we are, also, watching a neighbor's children while she works.

What will I be doing this weekend? I will say prayers for the departed. I will contemplate my life, and ask forgiveness for falling short in my attempt to reflect the divine attributes in my actions. The older I get, the more I realize that I will have to face a review of my life when my soul and body separate at the moment of physical death. Today, I am contemplating a verse revealed by Baha'u'llah.

"Think not that which ye have committed hath been effaced in My sight. By My beauty! All your doings hath My pen graven with open characters upon tablets of chrysolite."

Baha’u’llah1

What is written on the tablets of chrysolite concerning my life? I will find that out when Azrael, the Angel of Death, severs the umbilical cord connecting my body and soul. What will the review of my life reveal? I don't know, and it is something I'm not looking forward to. I will face that when the time come; in the meantime, I will pray, read the sacred writing, meditate, and attempt to act according to the laws revealed by Baha'u'llah. I know that sometimes I will fall short, because I am a human being. Human beings fall short many times, when I fall I just have to get up and continue trying.

Footnotes
1  The Hidden Words, p. 44.