 That's an amazing part one talked about a campus walked us through hell walked us through heaven But part two of this book meditations on death is actually my favorite because I didn't expect it and when I was when I was reading through this manuscript that you Brilliantly translated I got to this part and I just wasn't expecting it and I loved it And it's entitled a discourse in the person of a sinner about to die so The the author a campus Begins this chapter with a very interesting technique He says he says hey guys. There is a remedy to all temptation It's like any temptation you have I know Exactly how to handle it and then he starts begin talking about Now go into your private room and think about your day of death So why don't you kind of yeah, tell us a little bit about how he begins. Yes. Yes. Yes So he recommends to us meditation on death as this powerful antidote to any kind of Sin or temptation or or worldly anxiety? He says asks us to imagine ourselves lying on our bed in the very throes of death And how are we going to feel about it right there? And it suddenly makes whatever is tempting you to be much less appealing doesn't it got it? Yeah, and and and puts everything everything that we're doing which we're aspiring to do You know, you think if I'm struggling about something if I'm anxious about something, you know At the moment of death is it really going to matter all of that much? and then the choice between between good action or Or a wicked action or no action at all and which one are you going to prefer when? You come to that final point so it's keeping the end always in mind and and I think he's quite right in saying that this is a universal remedy for all of our Moral uncertainties and everything all of our temptations. So I'd say father we have a joke sometimes my brothers and I will you know If we say like oh, you know, how's your day going and one of my Goofy brothers. He'll say Terrible terrible. I said, what's wrong? He'll say my toaster doesn't have a bagel setting It's just something something completely ridiculous to just so you know, but but you know, we we we stress over the stupidest things Oh, we do you know and you know my One of my teenagers wrecked one of my cars again Very recently this is when you have 15 children and they become teenagers you become, you know a plague Car insurance I see as a monk. I think this is something which I'm a little bit grateful. I've escaped Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I am I am struggling through that But we're always therefore forced to look at okay. What other car are we gonna get you know, like we keep adding drivers So we have to get other cars and so anyway, so I'm looking at a car And a nicer car that I'm used to looking at I was looking at something and then I find myself saying Oh, look at this this car has doesn't just have heater in the seats But it has an air conditioning seat and like so you can click the button in the seats air condition And I'm like that's nice. Oh, look at this that the steering wheel has a heater built into it Wow, this is really nice and I start looking at it So they were comparing one car to the other and I find myself just so quickly because I've always just drove You know clunkers cars and I'm but I'm looking at now saying wait a minute. Wait a minute I am sitting here Slightly stressing over whether my steering wheel has a heater in it and whether my my seat has an air condition built into it This is completely Ridiculous, you know, so I got control of myself very quickly. I'm not a car person at all But my point is Is as silly as that is or as silly as whether your toaster has a bagel setting on it You know or how good your blender is, you know for your smoothie or something stupid I think on our deathbed father We're going to see All the all the issues of this life, you know our reputation how much money we made, you know our education All of these kind of big things We're going to see as silly As the heater in the steering wheel and as silly As the air conditioning in the seats and as silly as whether your toaster has a bagel setting That's right. And that's something that this when we go on to the Discourse in the person of the sinner about to die, you know, it doesn't say he's like a huge sinner It doesn't specifically name any of his sins or anything. So presumably he's no You know No worse than than we are all sinners in some way or the other But he reflects that he's wasted so much of his life all these precious opportunities In the pursuit of vetted ease in fleeting shadows and worldly things Things which don't matter and I think, you know, if we reflect on our own life's often We can find that yeah, where our thoughts are occupied our time and energy Are expended on things which aren't really going to matter all that much. Yeah. Yeah, so in this He begins he he goes from saying, okay Lay on your bed or imagine yourself laying on your death bed And then he's and then he starts talking about death like capital D like death in a character Yeah, shows up and stands next to the bed And there's a line Here on page 36 He says And here I hear the grim voice of death calling to me sinister Thunderous and with a hollow spectral resonance and drawing evermore nigh It says this is death death says You are mine now Neither your wealth nor your honors nor your reason nor your knowledge nor your wisdom nor your friends nor your kin Are able to free you from my clutches arise and let us depart now from the land of the living I mean this gives you goosebumps. You know, I mean this is serious business and this is a campus in the year 1400 Something yeah, yeah being extremely imaginative Indeed for very practical reasons. Yeah. Yeah, and um This uh, interestingly enough was about the time when the Personification of death as as the grim ripa really came into into circulation into currency at this point in history And you know the idea of death coming arriving at us as a kind of unwelcome guest one day And compelling us to accompany him. I think it's very very sobering thought And realizing that we're going to have to leave behind our wealth our status Everything which often we work so hard in this life to acquire a what do we take with us? We take with us the record of Our deeds both good and bad A very sobering thought indeed. Do you guys have uh, Charles Dickens Christmas Carol over there in Australia? Oh, yeah, we do Okay, yeah, I mean I mean that's one of the probably the most famous Christmas story there is and it's that's the idea, right? I mean it's this this this man, you know encountering The horrors of of death and having to think about what his life was made of And it leads to great conversion. That was the whole story, right? And so a compass is doing this, you know What 600 years ago? Yeah. Yes. It's amazing so tell us um The next chapter of lament over time wasted. So just talk to us now He's really now full blown into the story Of this man who's right at death's doorstep. Yeah, he's thinking now about what did he spend his time? Yes, and he talks about this and he says How foolishly and profitless did I let my life pass by wasting it neglectfully and carefully Carelessly as it were a thing of no value Or as if it were endless in scope and would never run out I squandered my time like an irresponsible spendthrift squanders money Not considering for a moment that it was both precious and limited So this is so important, you know, because Wasting time is actually if you think about it wasting life because what is mortal life But a certain quantity of time that we're given, you know and and people waste their life waste their time quite casually either on On pointless things or doing nothing or doing things which which have got no productive goal I think it really calls to mind how precious a gift this time is because it's our one chance We're not going to get a second chance. I'm not talking about purgatory, of course But but you know, this is our one chance of of expressing God's love and grace Of fulfilling his will of becoming the people who God wants us to be And and you know, we can see how much time these days is spent Surfing the internet or phones or whatever and yeah, and he talks about his reflection on life and he says All of these things have vanished like an insubstantial shadow passing in the night Or like a courier or herald who runs by swiftly without pausing to linger Or like a ship hastening through the light waves, which leaves not a trace of pacing Or like a bird flying through the air, which is quickly gone and leaves no footprint in on its flight Or like the sound of a bell rigging out which once it has ceased to toll leaves no lasting impression or memory This is amazing how transient things are and depending upon how old you are, you know You look back and you realize not only does life pass by quickly, but it seems to pass by at an accelerating rate You know, yeah when you're young Every year seems to go on forever and then after a few years they go by quicker and quicker and then You reach a point and you think gee the last decade has passed me by pretty quickly so I wrote about that and one of my previous books and I've I've thought and actually studied on that That notion of why does time feel to feel that it goes by faster and faster and I think it's because Young and this is speculation on my part father, but Young children live in the present moment. They're very happy. They're not thinking about yesterday And they're also not worried about their retirement plans. They're not worried about their 401k. They're not worried about fundraising They're not worried about making money. They're just living in the present moment God is the eternal now. He lives in the eternal now, right? I mean, he's he's not in the past He's not in the future. He's just the eternal now And our present moment Is the closest we ever get to god in the eternal now. So I think the way I think there's actually a technique that you and I can use to make time slow down And that is to not have resentments of the past Not live too much in our memory of nostalgia or regrets And also not to have too much worry anxiety concern about the future But to embrace the present moment Which is the only place that god really is in our life is in the present moment at least on the time spectrum And I believe if we do that then time stops moving as quickly we become Childlike just as he said you must be like these little ones that enter the kingdom of heaven So it's just a reflection. I've had that's why time goes by So quickly is because we're not living in the present moment. We're stuck in the past and we're stuck in the future Which is exactly where the devil wants us. Yeah