"What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." - James 4:14

I never liked that snippet of Scripture. Don't get me wrong, I get what James is trying to say in the larger context of verses 13-15. It's just that I've heard the "mist" part taken out of context and used to imply that earthly life is trivial. I'm not sure how anyone can read the entire biblical narrative, Genesis, the Gospels, et al., and conclude that earthly life is trivial.

Last night, I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the new Brad Pitt movie based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about a man who is born old and grows progressively younger (on the outside). This morning, I read that George Francis, the oldest man in the U.S., died on Saturday at the ripe old age of 112.

In the larger scope of things, neither the fictitious life of Benjamin Buttons nor the very real life of George Francis were very significant. In fact, had it not been for the "curious" aspect of both stories (Buttons' reverse-aging and Francis' milestone), neither life would be particularly worthy of a story, from an earthly perspective, either in the form of a major motion picture or a front-page Yahoo piece.

From a broad, historical, humankind-level perspective, both lives were about as significant as a piece of mist, appearing for a little time and then vanishing.

But one thing that stood out in both stories, to me, at least, was this. At the end of both their lives, Buttons and Francis were in the presence of people who loved them: Francis with his real children, and Buttons, in the form of an infant, in the arms of the only woman he had truly loved, now an old woman.

To those who love us, our lives, our earthly lives, are as significant as a great ocean, a glorious waterfall (or any other metaphor you can think of that goes to the opposite pole of the "mist" imagery). In other words, neither Francis' children nor Buttons' beloved would describe their lives as "mist."

...And no one loves us more than our Father in heaven.

So when you're making long-term plans, remember that your life is like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

But when you're considering your life as a whole, look at it from the perspective of those who love you.

...Like your Father in heaven, for instance.

Grace and Peace,
Raffi