Once again, we usher in a new year – one filled with anticipated opportunities and challenges. As we step forward into the unknown, with hope and renewed purpose, we are again confronted with that great equalizer: death. Anguilla has lost one of her sons early in 2018. Calan Vanterpool, a young man in the prime of his life died suddenly at his home in the Long Road. Our heartfelt condolences are extended to his parents Calvin and Angela Vanterpool, his brother Calivon and the extended family.
When faced with death, we are often reminded of our own mortality. We recognize the fragility of life and the privilege we have of seeing another sunrise or sunset. In the midst of our grief and despair, we often silently pledge to live better lives; to live with gratitude, compassion and humility. We acknowledge that we are only passing through and we ought to make our time here count. Yet, once the dust settles over the graves of the deceased, we usually continue as we were before – forgetting that we too can be snatched away in an instant.
I challenge us to think for a moment about this question which someone posed to me many years ago: If you knew you would die tomorrow, how would you live today? I believe this is another version of the saying, live each day as if it’s your last. Many of us would live more meaningfully if we were to approach each day with this question in mind. I would like to think that, apart from the obvious things like eating our favourite foods etc., we would spend more time with our family; cherish each moment with our spouse, parents or children; demonstrate more compassion for others and give of our time and resources to help the less fortunate; live peaceably with one another and seek reconciliation where there may be a rift; treat everyone with the dignity and equality inherent in each human being and humble ourselves before God, the author of our lives, who writes our beginning and our ending.
When we reflect on these things, we will recognize that we shouldn’t need the prospect of death to motivate us to live in this way. This is how we ought to live all the time. In fact, in Micah 6:8 we are told that this is what God requires of us: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Why then is our society plagued with so many issues: broken families, abuse, neglect, poverty, discord, hate, anger, violence, defamation, greed, envy, arrogance, intolerance, indifference and list goes on? Perhaps because only when death strikes we remember that we are a small speck in God’s universe and our time here is fleeting.
I encourage each of us in 2018 to approach our interactions with each other, and our efforts in the development of Anguilla, with a different outlook: make our sojourn here on earth matter. Let our personal, professional and national decisions glorify God, change lives and make Anguilla, indeed this world, a better place than we met it.
