Your corpse and your tribute
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jnr
Dear reader, you will die! Don’t exclaim ooh! I curse you not. I too will die; I curse not myself. Death is nothing; just a sleep, and awakening in another world. Fear not to die!
So, when you and I are dead, and our corpses are laid in coffins, and resting on the bier in church, and voices are welling up in sonorous songs, and the congregation is filing past, while our souls are suspended in space as spirit beings, superintending the church service, seeing everything but unseen by the rest, what would we wish to hear being said about our lives?
Finality
The finality of death and relative brevity of life imposes on us a duty as sacred and onerous as life. That duty is for us to discover our specific mission in life and to accomplish it, or live it.
Knowing our mission in life is not easy; fulfilling it is twice as difficult. How then can we know our mission in life?
Richard Bolles, in his book: How to Find Your Mission in Life, distinguishes three interactive aspects of one’s mission in life.
● Seek to live in the conscious knowledge of God’s presence; know Him, relate to Him, experience Him, and serve Him.
● Make the world a better place than you found it. That is to say, you must show sensitivity to the needs of others with a caring and loving attitude in life.
● You must know, isolate, and apply your specific gifts of mind, or talents, in a specific job, at a specific place, within a specific time. At the end of our work, death seals our life with the finality of judgement.
Admittedly, there is no Ghanaian, none whatsoever, who does not possess a nugget of virtue in him or her; a shade of mind or gift of insight, or beauty of skill that is unique to the individual and that cannot be replicated to the same degree. We are different with our gifts.
Our appreciation of these differences creates mutual respect and interdependence among us.
That being so, every work that any person is engaged in must be seen as that person’s specific role and mission at that specific time and place.
We must thus, begin to respect everybody’s work and to encourage each other to give our best, regardless of our social or economic standing in society.
In other words, our mission in life must be to contribute to the collective good of society according to what we do.
And what we do must be done in a spirit of love.
History is rich in examples of lives that made a great impact because of the service and work done by persons in a spirit of love and sacrifice.
One such person was Mother Theresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, former Yugoslavia, on August 26, 1910. At the age of 12, she strongly felt the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ.
She joined an Irish community of nuns in India, and there she served among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. She founded the Missionaries of Charity.
She died on September 5, 1997, at age 87. At the time of her death, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries.
In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Novel Peace Prize, “For work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace.”
Pope John II said of her the day she died: Mother Teresa has marked the history of our century: she defended life bravely; she served all human beings, always promoting their dignity and respect; she made the ‘losers of life’ feel the tenderness of God, loving Father of all his creatures.
She bore witness to the Gospel of charity, which is nourished by the free giving of the self until death. May her shining example of charity serve as a consolation and a stimulus for her spiritual family, for the Church and all of humanity.”
There are just too many important people we could talk about. One more example: a tribute to Kofi Annan, 7th Secretary-General of the UN (1997-2006). He was born on 8th April, 1938, at Kumasi. He died on August 18, 2018, in Switzerland. Says Mohamed Ibn Chambas, Ghanaian diplomat of the UN, at his funeral:
“Under his leadership, the global community… made a collective priority commitment to addressing the challenges facing humanity through the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals, putting people first, and holding leaders accountable. …Kofi Annan is the model of what it means to dedicate your life to the service of humanity, and the very best of humanity.
Unsung
But what about the unsung heroes and heroines here at home? Here is what some said about their departed mother:
“Every time we look back, we wonder how you could bring so many people from other families to live under one roof and provide the needs of every one of them.
Even though some of your children could not make it to the university, you did not hesitate to support the children of other family members at the university, and you went to great lengths to provide for their financial and physical needs. Indeed, you were a rarity among mortals.”
This simple tribute bespeaks the adoration that the mother was held in by the children.
She did something notable and progressive before she died. It did not matter whether the world heard of them or not; their loved ones knew.
We could say that short of a prophetic voice proclaiming that we have been born to do this or that, whatever our hands find to do; whatever station we find ourselves in; whatever tasks come our way to perform; we must deem the task and the moment as significant in weaving the tapestry of our life and fulfilling the mission of our birth.
Before we die, we must be able to say I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Finally, there is laid up for me, the crown of righteousness… (2nd Timothy 4:7-8)
The writer is a lawyer.