A few weeks ago, the world lost a dear man, Matt Smith. I had the honor of being his youth minister over 20 years ago. He was fun, insightful, and mature beyond his years. At his home-going celebration, each speaker came back again and again to how much zest for life Matt had.
The following day, Monday Oct 3, I stood before my students. They were very close in age to when I first met Matt, and as I stood there I wanted to share something of him with them. So, I told them two things worth repeating here.
First, I shared with them how Matt lived his life so engaged. I used the phrase “all in.” He was always present. Always eager. As he liked to say, always attempting to do something awesome. His energy was infectious and constant. It was his way of pursuing life with an optimism unbounding.
In the program for the celebration of life, the final sentence of his philosophy senior thesis was presented: “The truth shows us, like a “master light of all our seeing,” that life is meant for more than merely living: life is meant for living well.” And boy did Matt do that.
So, I urged my students to engage in their life and live it well. To go full throttle for a life of joy and zest. I told them that I loved those sentiments, and often captured quotes that expressed such well. Some of them I have shared here previously, but just to make the point that Matt was expressing, here they are again:
- “May you live all the days of your life.” – Jonathan Swift
- “I think it is better to risk my life and to be a “has been” than to never have been at all. Even though crippled and busted in half, it has been better to take a chance to win a victory or suffer defeat than to live like others do who will never know a victory or defeat because they have had not the guts to try either.” Evel Knievel
- “Death could not defeat him nor toil dismay him. He was quite without a preference of his own; he neither feared to die nor refused to live.” Sulpicius Severus writing about St. Martin of Tours
- “The worst of all fears is the fear of living.” Theodore Roosevelt
Two of my favorite movie quotes also say this well:
- Nick Nolte in The Peaceful Warrior: “Death isn’t sad; the sad thing is that most people don’t live at all.”
- Mel Gibson in Braveheart: “Every man dies, not every man really lives.”
The second point I made to my students was more quickly made, but perhaps deeper still. And here it is: life is not guaranteed. There is no promise of tomorrow. For myself, as a Christian, this is nothing to fear because I know Who holds the future…and He holds me as well. But even if you aren’t a Christian, and you simply believe that you are here by sheer happenstance through magic and pixie dust, the luck of the genetic draw…you are clearly aware that people die each day with little to no warning.
Thus, as I told my students, never let a day or moment go by without being a force for positive. Tell your friends, those you care about, that you love them. Hug more. Take a few extra moments to simply be with others.
Matt was a beautiful man. His going home was far sooner than I would have chosen, had God asked me. But while he was here, he lived a life that is the envy of others. As he said it “I can say why it is that through all of my struggles I count my life as a good one….I have always been lucky, and I have always been blessed. In short, this is my life.”