One Contemplating Missed Opportunities

Contemplating Missed Opportunities---------
Since we are on a little vacation, I think we might stop in Savannah tomorrow. I am a confirmed history nerd, and I love to visit places with rich history and try to imagine what they might have been like in “the day.” In Savannah’s case you can stroll down the riverfront of the city paved with cobble stones that were shipped to the old city as ballast in belly of sailing vessels that were to take cotton and tobacco back to England. The cotton exchanges and warehouses still stand and the old city cemeteries have interments that date back to those who came with James Oglethorpe in 1733. Not far away one may visit the historic Fort Pulaski which was in turn occupied by both Confederate and Union forces in the War Between the States. Like many of the other various port cities in the United States the riverfront was where the action was and shipping was the name of the game in the newly established colony of Georgia, named after King George of England.
I look forward to strolling along the riverfront and entering the little cafes that line that historic area where one must duck your head to avoid bumping your noggin on doors that were crafted when the average occupant of the city was much shorter (and undoubtedly much lighter) than today.
When we lived in Cleveland, Ohio the riverfront there had been much the same as the riverfront of Savannah in the early 1800s. I remember being on Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco and seeing a lovely painting entitled “Night Arrival on the Cuyahoga.” The painting depicted the Cleveland Cuyahoga Riverfront as it had been in 1850 when Cleveland was a leading source of iron and steel production and an important industrial city in America. The old sailing ship was easing into its berth in a city that had not yet fallen on the hard times that were to come and the glow of lamp and lantern light was flooding out into the twilight of the darkened river. I loved the painting and considered buying it but convinced myself that the price and the inconvenience of bringing the piece back on the plane dictated I not go ahead and make the purchase.
The fact that I am today still thinking about the piece of art is proof that I have often wished that I had gone ahead and suffered the cost and the slight difficulty of returning with the picture and thus have been able to cherish it over the years. It was one of those instances in life when you have to make a choice and seize the moment or it is likely lost forever.
Life is like that, we are faced with choices on a daily basis and we must make a decision to seize the moment or the opportunity is lost forever. Most of the choices are of much greater importance than deciding if one should purchase a particular piece of art, since my life would continue much the same either with or without the painting. Many of those choices however, are life changing as we can see from the bad choices made by many of the current celebrities in the world of sports and politics of late. Faced with an opportunity to resist a bad choice, they failed and chose poorly. It is equally true that many of us when faced with an opportunity to do good linger, lag behind, and lose the opportunity forever. A chance to do the right thing, to make a choice for the right and the good, often comes but once. Another opportunity may present itself, but that moment is gone forever.
Let’s each of us purpose in our own hearts to seize the moment, to do the right thing, to take an opportunity to do make a choice for good when it is presented to us, and not find ourselves contemplating a missed opportunity years later.
Have a blessed day and visit us at Maple Hill Church, a church of Christ.
Bob