Musings on Fear...
I think back now to those days early this past summer when I was afflicted with the pest-borne disease, the Lymes. How terrible was the first night of high fever, huddled shiv'ring neath the covers in spite of the warmth of the summer night. This was before I saw the healers and my ailment was driven out. I had not a clear image of what evil had befallen me, save the ghastly welt on the back of my leg. As I lay there, I queationed many dooms: have I a small wound that's come down infected? Is it some odd affection of the allergies? Am I spider-bit, and been given a blood-poisoning? There is a certain sort of dim madness that sets upon the mind of man when he is ill and does not know hy nor what the outcome will be. And reeling in this madness, I began to wonder if I shouldn't die, and as odd as it is now I began to have great fear. Looking back, I knew even then that it was not fear of death, per se, but of dying before I had really lived. Not even so much that, but worst of all of dying before I had the chance in this mortal life to live in fulfillment of my purpose, which lead to much searching of my soul. Had I done? Had I been what I was meant to be? As I sit here almost a half-year later, I am plainly still here, which means I have not yet fulfilled my destiny. But that will come in time. The greatest wisdom I found in that moment of terror was, in fact, that none should fear death. Death itself was proved once more to be only one event in the midst of a very long life. What it is right for men to fear is that they have not done all they ought, and so the lesson for you who read these words is, do what you might to fulfill your lives' work, and embrace all that is precious as it is here, for we all of us have work to do, and none know how much time to do it in.