Almost One Day Old

Posted on Feb 24, 2009 | 1 comment

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. In her book, CELEBRATE JOY!, Velma Seawell Daniels gives a striking new meaning to this familiar phrase. She tells of interviewing a man who had made a trip to Alaska to visit people who live above the Arctic Circle.

“Never ask an Eskimo how old he is,” the man said. “If you do, he will say, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” And he doesn’t. One of them told me that, and I pressed him a bit further. When I asked him the second time, he said, “Almost — that’s all.” That still wasn’t good enough for me, so I asked him “Almost what?” and he said, “Almost one day.”

Mrs. Daniels asked him if he could figure out what the Eskimo meant. He answered that he did but only after talking to another man who had lived in the Arctic Circle for about twenty years. “He was a newspaperman who had written a book about the Eskimos and their customs and beliefs. He said the Eskimos believe that when they go to sleep at night they die — that they are dead to the world. Then, when they wake up in the morning, they have been resurrected and are living a new life. Therefore, no Eskimo is more than one day old. So, that is what the Eskimo meant when he said he was ‘almost’ a day old. The day wasn’t over yet.”

“Life above the Arctic Circle is harsh and cruel, and mere survival becomes a major accomplishment,” he explained. “But, you never see an Eskimo who seems worried or anxious. They have learned to face one day at a time.”

“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?  Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:25-31 KJV)

Have you learned how to put worry and anxiety aside and live one day at a time? Yesterday has past. Tomorrow has not arrived, but Today is the first day of the rest of your life.