Love's Legacy

A couple of poets, a gravestone in Rome, the art of painting rocks, and lots and lots of ripples in the water.

This week we look at the legacy of love.  What do you want out of life?  What sort of mark do we leave behind?

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

New episodes drop on Tuesdays.

Transcript

I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone.

I realized that as this podcast has progressed, one thing we haven’t done yet is talk about the goal of love.  Why love?  What are we aiming for?  How do I define success?  What sort of legacy am I trying to leave behind?  Today, we are going to analyze poets, but not poetry, the art of painting rocks, and the legacy of love…  It’s going to be great!

On All Hallow’s Eve in 1795, a small baby boy was born in Moorgate, London… a section of London named after the northern gate of that fair city… back when cities needed walls and gates for protection against marauders and armies.  The baby boy was not noteworthy, nor from a noteworthy family.  His parents were neither poor nor rich for the time.  They were poor enough to be unable to send their son to the best of boarding schools, but rich enough to be able to send him to a boarding school.  So, as the years rolled by, Thomas and Frances Keats, eventually sent their young son, John Keats from their home in Moorgate to John Clarke’s boarding school in Enfield.  At school, he would learn reading, writing, and arithmetic… and most notably, John Keats would be introduced to poetry.  That’s right, we are talking about THAT John Keats.

Now, I told you we would be analyzing poets, not poetry… so you do not need to enjoy poetry to hang with me through the rest of this podcast.  To be honest with you, I’m not much of a John Keats fan.  I’m more of a Walt Whitman, Robert Frost sort of fellow.  Say what you will about me, but The Road Not Taken is hauntingly beautiful…I don’t care how popular it is – popular just means more people think I’m right.  “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Seriously, that’s poetry.

And Walt Whitman… read Song of the Open Road before a road trip sometime or As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life if you want to stare into the heady abyss that is your own mortality.  John Keats’ poetry on the other hand… it’s a little maudlin for my taste.  Very romantic, super emotional, his poetry is kinda like having a bed with 45 pillows on it, not my thing, but hey, you do you.

I don’t like John Keats’ poetry, but I’m fascinated by his gravestone.  John Keats died at age twenty-five.  Tragic, young, in the height of his vibrant life, he was taken down by tuberculosis.  While visiting Rome he was overcome by the disease and died there in Italy.  So if you visit Rome today in the center of busy tourists, bustling cars, and unending city noise stands a cemetery bordered by high walls and in that cemetery is a gravestone engraved with the phrase John Keats chose…  “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”.  In my opinion, that one line is the best piece of poetry Keats ever wrote.  When Keats died, nobody was impressed with his poetry, his life hadn’t amounted to much by the world’s standards, and as far as he could tell, everything he had accomplished was about as permanent a legacy as writing your name in a puddle.

And with John Keats’ the poet Solomon agrees.  If you want to think about your life being etched in water… read Solomon’s book of wisdom – read Ecclesiastes.  The whole book is a constant reminder of exactly how meaningless and vain life can be.  Here are just a few quotes from Ecclesiastes:

“What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes…” (1:3-4)

“There is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten.  And how the wise man and the fool alike die! So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.” (2:16-17)

“What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?” (3:9)

“All a man’s labor is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not satisfied.” (6:7)

“I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.” (7:15)

“It is the same for all.  There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice.  As the good man is, so is the sinner; as the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear.  This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men.” (9:2-3)

            One fate for all men… a life written in water.  You can make some ripples in the river, but eventually the water moves on without you.  John Keats is right.  Solomon is right.  Your deeds likely won’t have any cataclysmic impact upon the world – nor will the world remember you.  Even famous people – who were the great celebrities in the 1920’s? Or the heroes of the 1850’s?  If you started naming family members… how many generations back would you have to go before you didn’t know any of them?  Great great grandparents? Maybe one more generation?  That’s not long.  We’ve got a pretty short memory as the human race.

            Here is the truth.  You will die, and eventually no one here will remember you and none of the deeds you do will leave some legacy for you here on earth.  It’s all just writing in water.  And that… is exactly the point.  Eventually, you are forgotten.

            So, what is the purpose of living if it isn’t to make a name for yourself here?  How should I walk in this life?  What’s the goal?  In order to understand the purpose of a life without legacy is look at Enoch.  It’s time to go to Genesis.

"Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." (Gen 5:21-24)

So, tell me, what do you know about Enoch – basically nothing.  We know his age.  We can tell you where he fit in the ancestral records of Adam and Noah, but besides that you know nothing.  Exactly what we were talking about – Enoch’s life work, his achievements, his deeds – all written in water.  You know nothing about Enoch’s life.  The man lived 365 years on this planet… equal to about 4 and ½ lifetimes for us today and he is nothing but a mark on a family tree.  And do you know how much Enoch cares about that?

He doesn’t care at all! Because Enoch walked with God.  That’s right – his legacy isn’t here, it is at the throne of God.  Hebrews 11:5 says, “"By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God."

Your legacy can’t be here, so it has to be there.  Here it is just works written in water… in heaven, there is a legacy recorded.  Enoch pleased God and God doesn’t forget.  Enoch loved God, and God loved Enoch… and who cares about the rest?  This is the way to live.  Love becomes the legacy, not the achievements.  Enoch probably did THOUSANDS of things that were good things… but the things weren’t what mattered, the relationship with God is what mattered.

What would you do if you didn’t care what others thought about you?  The answer: you’d love better.

You’d not worry whether the right hand knew what the left hand was doing when it came time to give and help others – you’d just help them.

You’d stop praying like everyone was listening and start praying like only God was.

You invite people into your home, your life, and your heart because it was the right thing to do, not because they had something to offer you in return.

You’d serve without being encumbered by the legacy – and ironically, the relationships you build when you stop worrying about what others think become your legacy.

You know what life becomes when you live like Enoch?  It becomes painting rocks in the sun.

Let me explain.

When our oldest, Holiday, was just a toddler, we went to visit my folks on a hot summer day.  We were sleep deprived, and Holiday was not.  She was alert and happy and full of boundless energy.  So, my father went into the backyard, grabbed a dozen rocks, filled a bucket of water with the garden hose, and handed Holiday a tiny paintbrush.  And while I sat there under the sun and fog of new parent fatigue that little girl painted rocks with water.  She’d paint one, and bring it to grandpa.  He’d smile, inspect it and then put it down in a sun spot next to him.  By the time she had painted the last one they were dry and ready to be done all over again.  That little girl painted rocks for hours.

And in the end, she had nothing to show for it.  Total lack of achievement.  The rocks were the same, the world hadn’t changed one iota.  All that had happened was a memory was made with someone she loved.

Life’s just painting water on rocks in the hot sun.  Stop trying to do more for yourself and start trying to make the relationships matter.  Love God first and then love your neighbor.

Enoch painted rocks in the sun and nobody remembers what he painted, but Enoch walked with God – and that was all that mattered.

You want to love better?  Stop trying to leave a mark on the world and start trying to make a difference with people and with God.  After all, those are the first and second greatest commandments.  Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength… and the second is like it – love your neighbor as yourself.

Ironically, John Keats got it right (our lives really are just written in water), but so did Robert Frost.  There are two roads to life – the road of achievement, and the road of relationship, and those two roads definitely diverge.  At some point, personal achievement will always come into conflict with loving God and loving your neighbor.

You have to choose between personal business and stopping to help like the Good Samaritan.

Or you have to choose between fame and service like the apostles.

Or you have to choose between building bigger barns or finding opportunities to give like the rich man.

Or you have to choose between a legacy of service like Tabitha and a legacy of fame and power like Herod.

Ask yourself: am I willing to be Enoch the unknown if it brings joy to God?

Love like Enoch.  Let love be its own legacy.

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By sharing with others or leaving a review on Apple Podcast, you help us reach more people. Also, if you want more information about the work I'm doing at Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org or my personal Bible site, Biblegrad.com, where you can sign up for daily Bible devotionals called Biblebites and receive them in your email each morning, take online Bible classes, or find videos that will help you study through the Bible throughout the year.

And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, August 1915