A Little Latin

A Little Latin

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25

We have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Or even if it will come at all.

In one of Nathan’s favorite movies, Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams plays a boarding school teacher trying desperately to convey one simple concept before his students get too jaded by life.

You probably remember the scene. The teacher, Mr. Keating, walks past a row of students in his class and beckons them to follow him into the hallway. Standing before the trophy case, he asks one of the students to read a page from their poetry text.

Gather ye rosebuds while you may,

Old time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

That scene builds on an earlier scene, when Keating gathered the boys around him in the classroom and began the fully intended process of unsettling their nerves by making them stop to think about the import of their lives with the statement: “The powerful play goes on, and each of us can contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

With that thought floating through the hallways of their minds, the boys stand transfixed, gazing into the faces captured in old photographs of basketball and football teams. Faces, now with hollow stares, which once reflected the same hopes and beliefs as theirs—dreams that probably went unfulfilled.

Keating’s students realize that they don’t know anything about the people behind the faces, except that they are gone. “Fertilizing daffodils,” Keating muses. As the students continue to lean into the faces before them, Keating plants a life-changing paradigm shift for the boys, and for those of us watching from our seats, who have now been drawn into the scene, when he whispers:

“Carpe . . . carpe . . . carpe diem . . . seize the day, boys . . . make your lives extraordinary.”

Carpe diem.

Uncommon Key > God has given you one life to live—make it count for Him. Carpe diem—seize the day! Today and tomorrow and the next day . . . as long as He determines.