For Such A Time...

One of the benefits of living in a city are long walks - whether taken out of necessity or for pleasure. For me, I love roaming the streets and walk an average of 3 miles a day. This allows for a lot of inner monologues, thought processes, and prayer.

Walking home this evening I was thinking of the phrase "for such a time as this". It's spoken by Mordecai in the Old Testament when he's telling his niece Esther of her destiny to save the Jews from Haman. I was also thinking about the fantastic film "Midnight in Paris" (one of my favorites of 2011). The protagonist, played by Owen Wilson, is desperately nostalgic for the Roaring '20s. He sees the bygone era as one of bliss and imagination - indeed, many wonderful expressions of art came from that time. But Wilson's character also comes to realize that each generation has a penchant for backwards-gazing. I myself can slip into the allure of being, as Amanda Palmer once brilliantly put it, a "girl anachronism".

All this to say, tonight as I thought on Mordecai's phrase "for such a time as this", I found myself listing all the events and incidents that had to occur for me to be in the place I am influencing the people I know in this time of history. These include: the advancement of technology, the inception of the internet, the civil and women's rights movements, and 9/11, just to name a few. Nevermind the minute personal details and interactions, encounters, etc. we take for granted.

So often we get overwhelmed with details and are forced into "big-picture" mindsets. But today, I want to encourage you to think on the details, if only for a few minutes, of the events and encounters that have transpired to get you to the place where you are. Right here, right now.