There Is A Time For Everything

0:00Hey, this is Trey. Thank you for joining us for a Tuesday edition of our podcast. I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day and maybe you can feel a slight touch of autumn around the corner, just the slightest little hand of autumn. It's my favorite time of the year. For many reasons, we move from warmer to cooler. We move along the cycle of life. There are beautiful colors in spring to be sure, but there's something different to me at least about the colors of autumn. Or maybe because we know the life cycle of that leaf is short, we just pay it more respect.

1:00That's also, I guess, possible. Anytime you have less of something, you probably treasure it more, especially when that something is time. I have joked on many occasions that I am jealous of our dogs. We've had five judge Jerry Bayliffe and we now have Justice NDA. They did and do have good lives, but so do I. On the downside, they do not enjoy the liberties and privileges that I enjoy. They are somewhat confined to the house and yored and have a pretty regular diet, like the exact same thing every single day. Never once have they said, hey, let's watch something else tonight or I'm tired of listening to Pink Floyd. Can you play something else? Less freedom for sure, but they are not in this prison that we sometimes find ourselves mired in. They are not aware of their own mortality. It's been quite the summer for loss. Lindsey Graham was well known,

2:06scores of other folks have gone on the other side who are not household names. The father of one of my boy, his friends passed away at the wonderful age of 87, great life, great legacy, but that does not dull the sense of loss. I was on the plane to New York about 10 days ago when her friend texted me about a mutual friend about our age. He said, I'm sure you heard ellipsis and then included the name. No, I had not heard. 62, I believe he was, seemingly perfect health. He had just retired after a one full career of hard work and was going to enjoy being a husband, father and a grandfather. And an infection which 99,000 times, at a 99,000 times, you beat. But every now and again,

3:06this magnificent thing we call a body betrays us and our body over reacts. The intent is to save us, but it's the opposite that happens. One of my parents, bridge partners passed away, great life, but it doesn't lessen the loss. One of the most successful lawyers in the history of South Carolina, a man for whom the law school is now named. A man that I used to watch when I was younger at Carolina football games. He had great seats and dressed in a way that just screamed success. He could convince every jury he stood before, except the one with the grim reaper as the foreman. He can't win that trial. 9-11, so a constant yearly reminder of loss, even painful for everyone, but doubly so for those that

4:09had family and friends. The Lindsey Clancy trial is a reminder of loss. Yes, we could envy children before they become aware of death or we can envy animals who tend to not dwell on their own mortality, but it does not, to me, make a lot of sense to ignore the one thing we are guaranteed to face, which is our own mortality. We should not dwell on it, but we should not ignore it. We have to find the right proportion, so we are prepared, but not fixated. The articles pop up on the aggregator sites that I visit every now and again about billionaires chasing longevity or immortality or whatever word you want to use. Life, to me at least, should not come down. How much money you have. I mean, there are people who are not billionaires who would most often like to live as long as the rich. They just lack the means to buy it. There are however workarounds. I remember the scene from

5:15True Detective Season 1 before Russ Cole saw the light at the end. He was trying to belittle those people putting $10 into a wicker basket hoping for everlasting life. And what he failed to mention, you know, one of the cynical sermons of his is the rich have their own little wicker baskets. That's so-called educated, so-called elites who sometimes look down on organized religion. They have their own little wicker baskets and they have their own little golden calves. They may want a building name for them. They may want an endowed chair at a school, a roadway name for them. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the building will one day come down. It will be named for someone else. The roadway will be widened in name for another person or worse yet. The sign will remain. It will just be ignored. How many times have we driven over bridges

6:18or long highways, named for others, and either paid no attention or had no recall as to who that person was? Which sort of begs the question, which is worse, to be forgotten or to be ignored? We'll be right back with more of the Trigality podcast. We could plant trees. That's probably my favorite idea. They will likely outlive us, but then a storm will bring them down or a new neighborhood or a sawmill. We're chasing something we can never catch. Meanwhile, as we may be consumed by thoughts of living forever, literally or figuratively, we forget to enjoy the greatest gift of all. With just today, it's like keeping the finest China for a special occasion that never comes. It's like saving a special dress or your favorite suit for a ball that you'll never attend.

7:21People need to process that for themselves. They need to handle it, however, helps them the most. For me, it gives value in meaning to life because it does not last forever. It is a limited commodity to be treasured and measured. Blaze Pasquale was famous for his wager when in doubt, live as if God exists. And there is an afterlife. You give up nothing if you're wrong. You gain a lot if you're right. Now, to be fair, it's slightly more complicated than that, but that was the gist of his matrix or wager as it has come to be called Pasquale's wager. With all due respect to Blaze, I think he's missing part of the point. Enjoy the cracker jacks regardless of whether there is a prize at the bottom or the end. Appreciate the fact that your life will be more fulfilled by following those religious teachings, even if there is no prize at the end. The prize could be

8:25as the book of Revelation and other book of Describate or the prize could be eternal rest and the absence of pain. The real prize is that you have today, which is a gift. I'm not going to turn this into yet another Lindsey Clancy moment for many reasons, including my sensitivities go to the three children who never made it out of spring. Those little flowers and not even bloomed yet before they were cut down. Plus, I did not watch most of the trial. I watched very little of the trial. So I can't compare the testimony and the various expert witnesses. I have opinions because everybody has opinions, but we don't base verdicts on opinion. I don't have all the facts, and I didn't listen to all the testimony. What I do know is three lives were cut down essentially in the cradle. And here I am, staring into autumn, which is merging into winter.

9:30So what is there to be sad about? These kids would have given anything to make it 62. They would have given anything to make it to 32. Death does cast a shadow in part because we allow it to. We cannot win that battle. So why should it not to fight it? Death cannot prevail over gratitude. Living forever is just not a realistic goal. Living today, like it matters, that is a realistic goal. On Easter invariably, at least in the church we attend, they sing a song about Jesus overcoming the grave. When truth he had already proven this power over death, it didn't take the resurrection. I can think of three people he raised from the dead in the New Testament, and I'm not even a Bible scholar. I can think of three right now, before his own resurrection. So he'd already proven he had power over death. And the fact that he still talked about in worship today proves that he also conquered time,

10:31which is a much more daunting foe to me. He conquered time, he conquered death, he conquered obsolescence. We cannot live forever. A rash of funerals and bereavement coupled with all of them looming around the corner and then winter proves that. But that should not be the goal. The goal should be to do something for someone that does stand the test of time as we define it today. Not a hundred years from now, not a hundred hours from now. Can you make today better for someone? Do something, write something, say something that can render the grim reaper speechless. Not because he won't win, but because we don't care. And we're not afraid. Kindness, mercy, love,

11:33those may well be the ultimate longevity drugs. And that may be why dogs and cats and pets bring us so much joy because that is all that they can give us. And it is always more than enough. I'll see you next week. Listen to Add Free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show Add Free on the Amazon Music app.