Chaim Potok on filling one’s life with meaning:

Sign at The Crab Cooker Restaurant in Newport Beach, CA

Sign at The Crab Cooker Restaurant in Newport Beach, CA

We go to the beach every summer with the family. One of our favorite places to eat is The Crab Cooker–a fun and informal local dive with crunchy bread sticks and crab legs. I took this picture of a sign on the side of this bright red restaurant. The message is simple and clear. It reminds me of this thought from Chaim Potok’s The Chosen:

Reuven’s father tells him, “Human beings do not live forever, Rueven, we live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So we may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? I learned a long time ago, that the blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. The span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so that its quality is immeasurable, though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning; meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest, when I am no longer here…” (147)

About Ann Laemmlen Lewis

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