What’s Important Today?

It’s a cold day in February, St. Blaise Day, the martyr and saint of the Blessing of the Throats. I have a son whose middle name is Blaise after the Italian Bishop whose reputation includes a love of children and saving one such child from choking on a fish bone. As a child I loved his story and I guess it influenced me to use the name for a baby I loved. What was important to me when I was a child and heard this story was important to me twenty years later.

What’s important to you today? How much of what’s important to you today dates back to when you were young, to the mores from your childhood that have stayed with you? some of those influences may be religious in nature, others societal or cultural, and many arise from family customs. How did the overwhelming morality that encompassed you when you were a teen help you make good or bad decisions? How did others influence your behaviors then vs now? Have you changed and matured? Is what is important to you today more or less materialistic? So many questions i present and so few answers.

I do believe our living out our lives could include an action plan for being a social animal who values others and grows in kindness and goodness. Since i believe in the Divine, I want to face the final curtain with a sense that I tried each day to do better and be better than the day before. If I continually attempt an improved effort, i believe in Divine forgiveness for my many failures.

Based on these beliefs and the public arena we are living in today, I suffer great fear for our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren’s futures. Knowing my efforts to present good example are limited, I pray.

K. B. Pellegrino, Author