memento mori etiam vivere

It is perhaps a miracle that, throughout the nearly twenty-eight years I lived in Texas, I never saw a rattlesnake in the wild. I had to go to upstate New York to experience the thrill.

During the two weeks that we were away from the parish, Emily, the girls, and I spent several days on Lake George in the Adirondacks. On our last day there, I decided to go for one more hike and prepared to set out alone on a trail leading to the top of a cliff overlooking the lake. Wisely reminding me that one should never hike alone, Emily declared that she would join me. And I’m glad she did, because, as I tend to walk a bit too fast on my own, I might have trodden carelessly (had I gone alone) upon this fearsome creature:

Thankfully, I managed to spot this timber rattlesnake from about fifteen feet away—and resisted the mesmerizing temptation (I’m sure Freud could explain this phenomenon) to take a “selfie” with it. Rule #1: Always listen to your wife (pace Paul and the author of Genesis 3).

Seeing such a deadly snake in person—without a zoo’s glass wall between us, and with no cell phone service and an hour from the trailhead—has a way of sharpening the senses, bringing clarity, and centering one in the present moment.

There but for the grace of God we tread. None of us are promised another moment on this beautiful (yet deadly) planet. Every meal, every breath, every word that crosses our lips, every thought we entertain could be our last. This reality can be terrifying.

But we need not live in fear. We need not cover ourselves in bubblewrap or hunker down in a doomsday shelter, enslaved to anxiety. The cross and the empty tomb are a source of hope and of courage not only to exist, but to truly live—joyfully, in self-giving service to others, and with gratitude, remembering that life is a gift.

My evasion of the rattlesnake was a gift. My family’s time in the Adirondacks was a gift. Our safe return to Princeton was a gift. The opportunity to work among and alongside the wonderful people of All Saints’ is a gift.

What “rattlesnakes” has God protected you from? What gifts have you been given? In what ways might you more fully live the life of joy, self-giving service, and gratitude to which God has called us?

The Adirondacks, of course, have more than rattlesnakes: