For the love of Matzoh

Exodus 12:28-39

     In today's passage from Scripture we enter into the events of the Jewish nation hurrying out of Egypt and hence the matzoh or 'unleavened bread' we are familiar with. That is what got me thinking. To get a feel for the urgency and movement, I am imagining how people react when they are told at a moments notice that they have to evacuate their homes because a fire is encroaching or a levee is about to burst. and by the way, en route? all your neighbors hate you or are at the very least, highly suspicious of you.Take everything of value, be cautious, your lives are about to change forever. Of course you cannot take everything and at the same time you have to leave.

     I began to think of how we live life, sometimes afraid to enter into a 'new land' of experience and when we plan to do so, we really plan. Sometimes we never even get to the movement part because everything is not 'just so'.

     So you are looking for your soul mate but you can never quite find the perfect person. There is always a reason to not commit, a reason to dismiss a person, a reason not to move forward. You go from searching for Mr. Right to a seemingly endless string of Mr. Right nows. If that is what makes your soul really happy and fulfilled, go for it I suppose.

       I recall hearing on many occasions, newlyweds beings asked, and perhaps prompted by a somewhat innocent barrage of questions, 'when are you going to have kids'? To me it seems like a horribly intrusive if not rude question but I have heard it. A frequent answer is "when we can afford it".  Oh my, they are never going to have kids !  And that is my point. You can never fully plan for it.

      Life is not something we can fully plan for. As my sainted mother-in-law would say, "people plan, God laughs". Sometime in all of the planning we miss the best parts of life if not life itself. Yesterday at the funeral for that sainted mother-in-law of mine, a senior family member advised not to wait to do the things we want to do, 'you are guaranteed nothing'.

       If the Jews had waited for the bread to leaven, they would be dead and we would have been denied a great vehicle for butter or cream cheese. 

       There is that expression 'carpe diem' - seize the moment!  Yes live life fully and faithfully, but for God's sake, live it now.