I grew up in a deeply religious home where the Bible – the Scriptures of both the Jewish faith and the Christian faith – was held in high regard. Although I see so many things in a radically different way now, I honor those scriptures as an insight into people’s search for a deeper relationship to the source of all life. And throughout that record of their very human struggle for connection and understanding, there are many pearls of deep and ancient wisdom that transcend culture and time.

One of those is the heart cry that is expressed in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom…”

I can’t ever read that without thinking of the story of the man who sat down and calculated how many weeks he had left to live, all things considered, and then went out and got a big jar, filled it with a corresponding number of marbles, and put it on a shelf in the garage.

Each week he would go take one marble out and throw it away; and the visual representation of the non-renewable nature of life helped him focus on the meaning and the value of every minute of every day.

Teach me to number my days…

And, of course, the question when you take that marble out is, “Was that time well spent, or time unfortunately wasted?

I’ve often thought about how helpful it would be if when we popped out of the womb our expiry date – much like the food we buy at the grocery store – was stamped on our butt. Then we would always know exactly how much time we had left, and we could plan accordingly! But it doesn’t work that way.

In his book, “The Master and the Margarita”, Mikhail Bulgakov phrased it this way, “Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he’s sometimes unexpectedly mortal…” 

The last six months has been a strange and heart-breaking experience for our family as friends who were here one day became “unexpectedly mortal” and were gone the next. And you get, “that call”.

Plan Be is about living in the daily awareness of that mortality and, as much as possible, trying to make every minute matter. Being truly present. Living a life of connection and kindness. Being open-hearted. Loving and being loved. Being awake and aware and alive.

Teach me to number my days…