{"id":8369,"date":"2014-01-27T11:07:28","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T19:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=8369"},"modified":"2014-01-27T11:10:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T19:10:54","slug":"moses-and-our-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2014\/01\/27\/moses-and-our-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Moses and Our Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Moses-Vegh\"<\/a><\/h6>\n
The smile, perennial to the end<\/h6>\n

Moses Vegh died last Saturday. Thoughts of that and of his life keep coming back to me. That he was 80 and I’m 70 have no little part of it.<\/p>\n

I only came to know Moses during the last six months. He’d spoken at our church, as had I. He spoke about his new book, which I bought and read. After I spoke he said, \u201cLet’s go to coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was while in Spain I read his book. Not that Spain has anything to do with it, but I was away from my normal routine, and thinking thoughts outside my normal routine. And Moses’ book describes a life outside of anybody’s routine!<\/p>\n

It’s an autobiography, something friends had long coaxed him to write. Just in time, as it turns out.<\/p>\n

Without boasting, it overviews a life transformed by and dedicated to the service of God in the lives of others. In his teens he was already a speaker in demand in various parts of the US and Canada. Over a life time, he traveled the world doing same.<\/p>\n

Though he never benefitted from higher education or seminary, he was part of founding a number of such. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in China. (\u201cMade in China,\u201d he called it, never taking himself too seriously.)<\/p>\n

Every page of his book gives an account that for someone else’s life would have been its high point; then you turn the page and there’s another one.<\/p>\n

When we’d go to coffee (actually breakfast, weekly) I’d take notes on our conversation. He seemed to have not only the exact biblical quote to every situation, but chapter and verse. My current sketch book has a number of pages recording our times together. I never expected this chapter would close so quickly.<\/p>\n

I was in Papua New Guinea, just this month, when I heard he was ailing. And that of multiple threats, Stage 4 Cancer on top of diabetes and I don’t remember what all else. By the time I got home I learned he was in the hospital, and then the final news: Dead.<\/p>\n

Somebody said that on visiting him he’d been in his normal spirits, quoting a segment of Psalm 1, \u201cHe maketh me to lie down . . . \u201d*<\/p>\n

There will be a big memorial for him this coming weekend with, I’m sure, many, many tributes.<\/p>\n

But my reflections aren’t so much along those lines. Our lives are what they are. Each has its own history, and we can’t go back and live them differently. My reflections are more about its limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe length of our days is seventy years, or eighty if we have the strength.\u201d That’s a statement by the original Moses, in the Old Testament. By coincidence, that’s exactly what Moses Vegh had.<\/p>\n

Another truth knocking about in my memory of late is this one: \u201cDeath is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moses was 80; I’m 70. What are you?<\/p>\n

Do the math.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

______________
\n* \u00a0 \u00a0 Psalm 23:1
\n** \u00a0 Psalm 90:10
\n*** Ecclesiastes 7:2
\nPS \u00a0If you missed the report and photos of Papua New Guinea, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The length of our days is seventy, or eighty if we have the strength . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8369"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8390,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8369\/revisions\/8390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}