QuakerQuaker

Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?

I am unaware of anyone completing and publishing a project quite like this one. But I did stumble across an Amazon ad for the best seller, Until Today. I was humbled! The book is described as “365 daily devotionals that support the time-honoured adage, ‘Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?’” I was inspired! If Iyanla Vanzant can write 365 reflections on one adage, I can certainly write 201 reflections on 201 adages! Providing that I get started without putting it off another day.

Psalm 103:15-16

As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.

We are transient! If my writing has made me hear one thing that I had never fully heard from the scriptures, that is it. I had certainly read words like these before but I now felt bombarded by them as I worked through writing these reflections. Our transience is held in our face from the beginning to the end of the Bible. Yet from expensive funerals, to Botox injections, to magic pills, to all sorts of attempts to leave a legacy, it seems we are slow to embrace our fleeting vitality. Imagine introducing yourself to stranger or describing yourself in a job interview as a “blade of grass that withers and blows away.” If we truly acknowledge that even the existence of the future itself is uncertain, we would surely be motivated to “do today what we put off until tomorrow.”

0 members like this

Comment by James C Schultz on 1st mo. 28, 2017 at 11:35pm: The way I remember it was "Never put off 'till tomorrow what you can do today". The way you put it, it's a question and as a long standing member of the Procrastinator's club and a lawyer I practically always put things off to tomorrow if they don't have to be done today and am best known in my family for paying my taxes as the clock winds down on April 15th.:)

Comment by Glenn Morison on 1st mo. 29, 2017 at 11:20am: That is a popular club you belong to. I trust that you prefer the "advice" about putting things off today in the form of a "query" where it leaves you more room, and time, to respond.

Comment by James C Schultz on 1st mo. 30, 2017 at 9:26am: One of the reasons I feel comfortable as a Quaker is the length of time allowed to get things done. It takes me at least a week to allow my thoughts on a matter to mesh in my mind. I see both sides of just about everything and it just keeps going on and on. It's like that diagram Quakers use to explain when it's ok to share vocal ministry.

Comment by Glenn Morison on 1st mo. 30, 2017 at 11:42am: I am not sure I know that diagram... can you share it here?

Comment by William F Rushby on 1st mo. 31, 2017 at 6:26pm: See the diagram from Salem Friends Church (Salem, Iowa) at end of their website essay on "Open Worship." http://salemfriendschurch.org/what-we-believe/open-worship It is remarkably well done. I wish readers could get copies of the diagram, and the whole essay for that matter!

Comment by Glenn Morison on 1st mo. 31, 2017 at 8:48pm: Thanks!

Comment

You need to be a member of QuakerQuaker to add comments!

Join QuakerQuaker

RSS

Welcome to
QuakerQuaker

Sign Up
or Sign In

Or sign in with:

Support Us

Did you know that QuakerQuaker is 100% reader supported? Our costs run to about $50/month. If you think this kind of outreach and conversation is important, please support it with a monthly subscription or one-time gift.