Carving in stone

My only ever-fading memory of this place as a young person is my mother telling me that tourists had defaced these rock walls. It's at Indian Cave State Park in Nebraska - aptly named for its cave that, long ago, was marked only by the native people who stood on this land.

I remember the disgust I felt when my she told me that other people had come here and carved their own meaningless words into the walls. Dates - names - lovers - random obscenities. Her words about the place have been with me ever since, and I have always had a degree of hatred for the people who carved these things.

The more I think about this though, the harder time I have to find much fault in the people who made these carvings.

Don't we all want something more substantial than this life we lead? Don't we all want something that will be left behind as a remembrance?

Yet no matter what we do and no matter how loud we scream - we will fade away, and everything around us will be gone.

There is a precious, beautiful truth in in that idea. It is this: that what we do in this life matters. It's all we have, and the only thing we can believe in.

Say what you want about religion, or multiple universe theories, or any kind of afterlife you might believe in. This world would be a better place if we stopped acting as though what we do only gets us somewhere "better" after we're dead.

This is our time. All of ours - old and young - rich and poor - to live this life the way we know we should. We only have this one chance to do things right.

Carving in stone is just not enough. Faith is not enough. Our words, our acts, our gifts must be the way we define ourselves. Forgiveness, the most difficult of human acts, should be our guiding light.

More than a legacy that will also fade, we should live our lives knowing that this is all we can truly bank on - and that the life we lead right now matters. Our acts will weave through the future, and although no one will know our name, may they carry on what we have started.