What will the future look like because I lived?

While visiting Pittsburgh, PA I toured the Heinz museum. I highly recommend taking the time to go if you are ever in the area,

I toured and enjoyed the sports and technology advancements that came from the area. I enjoyed learning that Lewis started the expedition here and met up with Clark later. I learned how glass and steel have been improved and enhanced in this area. The Pittsburgh area offers a host of contributions to the world. Carnegie is founded here, the first organ transplants, Fred Rogers, a big station of the underground railroad and much more all hail from this little city.

But as I walked through the museum it occurred to me that it is the responsibility of all of us to live our lives to positively impact the future. It is within each human being to play their role so that those who come after us are better off.

I stood at a display of a young prairie girl tending to the cooking. On the small table next to her was a handwritten book. The plaque in front of the display informs me that it is a cookbook. Complete with ingredients and amounts and directions for cooking. This young girl’s mom or aunt had created a cookbook to ensure that family favorites could be served for generations to come. A novel concept at the time.

At first I thought, wow how progressive and insightful to have the forethought in that difficult life of taming the prairie, Then it occurred to me, the women may not have been much more noble or altruistic then I am. She was probably responding to the necessity of repeatedly instructing the same dishes over and over each time they were made. I know the feeling when asked to repeat instructions on family favorite recipes I have already shared.

It isn’t always the noble causes that cause the progress to be realized, sometimes it’s the simple reality that it makes life better for me first. What will my contribution to this world be? Probably something to do with a sink clear of dishes.

Happy Honeymooning!

Matthew 28:1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.