On a recent trip to Maryland, I came across a desk calendar in my sister-in-law’s kitchen.
I love the quote, and the prayer below:
Lord, help me see Your hand of preparation in my life. Create in me a lasting work.
After reading it several times, and reflecting on how it called to me, an idea struck me: That’s what life’s all about, isn’t it?
Yes! Beyond even a shadow of a doubt. If life’s a caravansary, and knowing full well that we don’t get to stay, I ask myself frequently:
What lasting work will I create with enthusiasm while I’m here?
The word enthusiasm matters to me. It comes from the Greek, entheos—God within. That’s important to me because I can’t envision creating a lasting work without the inspiration of a power greater than I can know or understand.
What’s more, amid the complicated rhythms of life I only see two possibilities for creating a lasting work:
- By the way I can pour into others during my life, so that my spirit may live on, far beyond my lifetime, and find expression in their lives and those they subsequently touch;
- Or, through the creative artifacts I can choose to live behind, all with varying half-lives: books, blogs, paintings, drawings, musical compositions, recorded performances, nonprofit organizations, companies, social movements, etc.
Both matter to me, for what else is there?
I can’t help but think of the people who are long gone but who inspire me today, in some cases, thousands of years after they lived. Immortals, like Socrates, Spinoza, Michelangelo, Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln, Tolstoy, Ruben Dario—to name a few. But also more recent heroes of mine like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., my father—Danilo Vargas Sr.—and Maude Welsh, among so many others.
And I remind myself that creating lasting works requires much preparation; sometimes a life’s worth of it.
It’s in that spirit that I pray that this blog is a lasting work and that, what Benjamin Franklin called, All Powerful Goodness, grants me the deftness, humility, and grace to serve my readers well.
It’s taken me 51 years of life to get to this point in space and time. What wisdom, and knowledge, and useful tidbits I’ve gathered along the way I hereby promise to humbly submit for your kind consideration.
With that I say, Hello world!
And I say it with love and gratitude,
Danilo Vargas
November 1, 2023