Q-BLOG #30 - Numbers

Numbers seem to have become a greater part of my life during this deployment. Each day in the Stars and Stripes newspaper the ever growing number of American soldiers who have died is reported. 2528 as of Thursday 29 June. 18,696 Soldiers have been wounded. 30 to 45,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the past three years.

Numbers and more numbers. Each, depending on context can tell the truth, form a lie, or create a diversion of perception or reality.

I am not always comfortable with numbers. I know that we use them everyday and in myriad ways. They help get us through our days and our lives. They are the things that help define us as a society. Numbers though can sometimes be so overwhelming that we begin to ignore them or give them different meaning.

Today I was hit by a song about a certain large number. 525,600 is the number. This song I know and enjoy and sometimes when I hear it, I cry. The song is from the Play/Movie/Soundtrack, RENT. It is titled, "Seasons of Love". It starts out with this huge number, 525,600.

"Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred moments so dear.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year"

Though this number is huge, the song allows you to break it down into a moment of life; a moment of living; a moment of death. That is what the play is about. Death. Life. Living. Each day, each week, each month and year we are given moments to create and to live. How do we measure those moments? How do we measure that year? The song goes on,

"In daylight, in sunsets, in midnights,

in cups of coffee, In inches, in miles

in laughter in strife."

Those words send me to a memory as a child when I would sit on the back porch of our home and watch the sun set. The colors, air and silence would move my soul. They send me back to a time in college when I was working at Safeway in Albuquerque, NM. I would work until 11:30 pm. Three of us did this almost every night. We were Jo, Ronnie and I. We would stand in the parking lot talking past midnight. Once in awhile we would decide to drive into the Sandia Mountains, go to the peak and wait for dawn so we could watch the sun rise. Cups of coffee always take me to Dallas with friends gathering at Starbucks or to Europe where going out for a cup of coffee was an event, especially Sundays, or Sunday morning breakfast at my parents.

"Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.

How do you measure a year in the life.”

Often times we, I, measure my life by things that I now see are/were not the best ways to measure my life-the right car, nice clothes, a nice home and nice things to put in it. I don’t believe it is bad or wrong to have those things. I do think that I’ve been using them to measure my life and for me I see that is wrong and not what my life is or should be about. What would be a better measure of life? The chorus of the song leads us to an answer.

“ How about Love
how about love
how about love
measure in love
seasons of love
seasons of love”

The old saying comes to mind. “It is better to have loved and lost than to never to have loved at all.” Some of us can get caught up in the numbers game even in love. We’ve loved “x” number of people; we’ve had this many boyfriends or girlfriends, or wives or husbands. I think what the chorus is saying, or at least what I hear it saying is simply to Love. Don’t count. Don’t stop. Just let love flow from you and let it flow to you. It is the depth of love that defines us best and the lives we touch and those that touch us.

Several friends in Dallas have included me in a sort of book club. They encouraged me to read a book with them so as a group we could discuss and engage each other in conversation. I was hesitant. I purchased the book and began reading. More important, I began thinking about what was written. The book is ‘The Success Principles’ by Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup For The Soul. There is a chapter in which the author asks you to write down 30 things you want to have, 30 things you want to do and 30 things you want to be before you die. I would challenge each of you to think about this in earnest and write them down.

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man”

Prior to my first deployment I became engaged in conversations about this war. I recall one conversation that surprised and shocked me. This person talked about how we should just blow up all these “diaper heads” and how they had no right or reason to even think about coming to our country, as the world would be better off with them gone” and “that should go for all immigrants”. The words may not be exact, but the message is the same.

Last week I was able to watch the movie, Hotel Rwanda. The message from that conversation a year ago crept into my consciousness. It is that type of thinking that brings war. That brings genocide. That prevents one group of people from having the rights and privileges of another and thus making them seem less human.. The measure of a woman or a man is not the race, the religion, the political group, the sexual identity or country they are from. The measure of a man or a woman is how they treat themselves and others in each of those Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes….year after year, moment after moment. The measure of a woman or a man is...

“ In truth that she learned

or in times that he cried

in the bridges he burned

or the way that she died “

Numbers can lie or tell the truth or take a life or define a life.

“Its time to sing out

though the story never ends

lets celebrate remember a year

in the life of friends”


525,600 minutes. How will you choose to live them going forward?

Choose love instead of fear….each and every minute.

Blessings,

Robert