Civility Corner - February 28, 2014

Omar Khayyam was a Persian philosopher, poet, and mathematician, who is perhaps most remembered for his agnosticism, at least by those of us who studied him from the Judeo/Christian perspective. Nonetheless, he was a major thinker of his time.

The one thing that will always stand out in my mind, is the Khayyam poem, which rhythmically expresses an eternal truth:

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

The documentation of our service on this Earth is being inexorably written. And there is nothing we can do, that can erase what we did – or failed to do.

Raphael, the great Italian painter, died at age 37 when he was only half way through his powerful painting, "The Transfiguration." Mourners carried his unfinished painting in his funeral procession as a reminder to an often forgetful world that even if we work fervently every single day, we will not even complete one half of what we were born to do.

What if we don't even try?