Let's pick a few more daisies before we start pushing them up

A few tears ago, my granddaughter Emily and I were at my church and just a few moments before the service started, the carillon bells began to chime. She smiled and whispered a confession:  

"Grandpa, when I was little I use to thing those bells were telling everybody to hurry and get to church because it’s getting late. I didn’t know they were telling us the time."

Funny how our views of life often are constantly changing. Each experience, each new revelation has the potential to affect us, perhaps give pause to re-examine how we have spent our lives. Time -- it gets away from us and accelerates as we get older, doesn’t it?

Many years ago, 85-year-old Nadine Stair of Louisville, Kentucky, was asked what she would do if she had to live here life over – and here’s what she wrote:
" If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

"I would perhaps have more actual troubles…but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments and if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

" I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies."

Those bells we hear in life reminds us that time moves like lightning across a storm-crashed summer sky. They are tolling for all of us in different tones and volumes, encouraging us to ride as many roller coasters as we do merry-go-rounds. To balance our common sense with fun nonsense. 

And always snatch the occasional daisy we see; more so, perhaps, when we find ourselves walking through the weeds.