Time Flies on Wings. It won't wait for you

I've thought a lot recently about a poem I read back in high school. I'm fairly sure that Andrew Marvell's intentions were not--how does one put it?--all together honorable, toward "his Coy Mistress." Still four lines from the poem have stayed with me for half-a-century, now:    But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near; Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.  Events have conspired, of late, to make me acutely aware of times passage, and the eroded landscape it leaves behind. My little brother had a birthday. Two of the youngest senior citizens I know were just confronted with the reality of mortality. My younger grandson is now fourteen. Though you'd never know it by looking at my lovely wife, in a week and a day we celebrate our Forty-fifth Anniversary. Just this morning I talked to a friend considerably younger than me; we discussed his retirement. It was the second serious conversation I've had this week about age and mortality. I'm surrounded by people younger than me, not only the students at Pacific Islands University, but the staff. Some of them are younger than my sons.  As if that wasn't enough video footage of the winged chariot rolling, unhindered along. The subject matter this week, for the class I'm teaching was heaven. Finally, though I started the week with good intentions, here it is Fridayand I'm just now giving you something to think about. It's not nearly as poetic, but the following has some of the same sentiment and is more my style than the verse of the Cavalier Poet. "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to slide across the finish line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, and shouting GERONIMO!!!"    Whether you prefer the version from the literature book, or the doggerel from the Internet, there is something to be said for the sentiment. As a fellow preacher reminded us Don't waste your life. I could say more, but I think you've got it. Go live Life. Love Jesus. Like the great apostle "finish your race. It's STTA (Something To Think About).