Life: Why Live If You Have to Die?

By David Alexander Perry Sr.

Life: Why Live if You Have to Die? is a unique work that shares principles and illustrations that you may not have thought of. Some of us just live. We take life for granted, and we move according to what we must do or should do. As humans, we have to put up with life because we are here, and we have no choice.

Life to me is like reading a good mystery book. You keep wondering what the next thing will be or how it will end. A problem arises; you solve it. You find joy in attending classes to improve yourself, and it brings excitement and entertainment.

This book is full of poetry, quotations, instructions, and illustrations. Its all about living, and if the living is right, enjoyment, excitement, and fulfilling achievement follows. Life: Why Live if You Have to Die? is written to enlarge your vision about life and to further guide you through the maze and entanglements that life throws at you every day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449798420

David Alexander Perry Sr.

Rev. David Perry was born in Evansville, Indiana, in 1923. He was educated at Wilberforce University (BA), Payne Theological Seminary (BDiv) and Indiana State University (MA). The author pastored forty-seven years as an AMEC minister and was a teacher/administrator for twenty-eight years.

Book preview

LIFE

Why Live if You Have to Die?

An attempt to unravel some of life’s mysteries

and offer some guidelines to provide meaning, purpose, design, and direction during these difficult times

David Perry

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Copyright © 2013 David Alexander Perry, Sr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9841-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9840-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9842-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910691

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/02/2013

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Why Live If You Have to Die?

Chapter 2 What Is Life Anyway?

Chapter 3 The Journey Begins

Chapter 4 The Road Less Traveled

Chapter 5 Problems: Why? What to Do

Chapter 6 Discipline: Why? For Whom?

Chapter 7 The Living Process

Chapter 8 What Do Signposts Mean?

Chapter 9 Sociality and Involvement

Chapter 10 Faith versus Knowledge

Chapter 11 What Do Dreams Do

Chapter 12 What Is Real and Unreal? What Difference Does It Make?

Chapter 13 Where Does Sexual Relations Fit In?

Chapter 14 The Mystery of Childbirth, Child Growth, and Development

Chapter 15 The Home, Church, School, and Social Agencies

Chapter 16 Life’s Alternatives Yield Human Disintegration

Chapter 17 Eternal Journey, Eternal Adventure

Selected Bibliography

To my wife, Gwendolyn Heeter-Perry,

who assisted me in the completion of this work through her continuous encouragement

Preface

The author has had an inquiring mind for as long as he can remember. When he was a child, he wanted to know why the grass was green and the flowers came in so many colors. As a child, he looked across the water in the gulf as the sun was setting and wondered why the water was pink and orange. As the author grew older, he began to look at life and wonder, How did the trees grow so tall and stately? What caused the many changes in human growth?

Now, he ventures to look upon the untold mysteries that surround life. Why live if you have to die? What is life for anyway? What happens after life as we know it? After many moments of reflection, meditation, research, and conversations, some answers have surfaced, yet some unanswered questions may still remain. Reading this book should open new avenues in your thinking and hopefully lead you to higher standards of living.

Much credit goes to his wife, Gwendolyn, who took time to reflect and discuss matters with me that were sometimes puzzling.

Chapter 1

Why Live If You Have to Die?

The profound mysteries of life, what an undertaking! Ironically, as I begin this work, a young man who was fired from his job a year ago walked into a cafeteria in the building where he used to work and shot five administrators who were eating lunch. The room was crowded, but the three people he killed and the two he injured were believed to be the ones responsible for him losing his job. Afterward, he went across the causeway and shot himself in the head. His death was his solution to his problem. Wow! He could have found a more appropriate way to solve his problem. The young man did not try to discover life’s meaning or its purpose.

A dying teenager said, Life is only a dream. The Epicureans long ago advised, Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. A popular song is entitled, Is That All There Is? The song pertained to life. Nat King Cole recorded the song Nature Boy, which contained these words, The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

This brings us to the first point on why we live. This is God’s world, and He chose us to help make it livable and beautiful. God is love. Love conquers all. Love is not something you pick up or catch. Rather, it is a development that comes from just being friends with people.

Charles Spurgeon, a well-known Baptist minister of the nineteenth century, described friendship as one of the sweetest joys of life. Many might have failed beneath the bitterness of their trial if they had not found a friend. Because friendship unites humans together and is so essential to building a better community and an improved world, let us look at Robert G. Lee’s The Ten Commandments of Human Relations:

1. Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.

2. Smile at people. It takes seventy-two muscles to frown, only fourteen to smile.

3. Call people by name. The sweetest music to anyone’s ear is the sound of his or her own name.

4. Be friendly and helpful. If you want to have friends, you must be one.

5. Be cordial. Speak and act as if everything you do is a joy to you.

6. Be genuinely interested in people. You can like almost everybody if you try.

7. Be generous with praise and cautious with criticism.

8. Be considerate with the feeling of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy—yours, the other fellow’s, and the right one.

9. Be eager to lend a helping hand. Often, it is appreciated more than you know.

10. Add to this a good sense of humor, a huge dose of patience, and a dash of humility. This combination will open many doors, and the rewards will be enormous.

We cannot tell when friendship is formed. It is like when we fill a vessel drop by drop. At least one drop makes it run over. In a series of kindnesses, at least one makes the heart run over.

The primary lessons of life are to learn to love, to be kind, to be fair, to be just, to be compassionate, and to be sympathetic in every situation regardless of reasons to behave otherwise. If we have love, we don’t need anything else. By the same token, it doesn’t matter what else we have. If we do not have love, it isn’t enough.

Why live if we have to die? Only humans can tend the Garden of Eden. Only human beings, who were created in the image of God and whose position is just a little lower than the angels, can possess the potential to love and come close to matching such a perfect universe. Therefore, God made humans the tenants of this wonderful world. The extent to which it expresses love largely determines how humanity does with this assignment.

It must be said again, however, that one can be the smartest person in the world, the best artist, the best professional person, the best public speaker, or the best musician, but all will be of no avail unless he or she has love. Unless a soloist sings from the heart of love, he or she might as well not sing. Unless the orator speaks from the heart of love, his or her message is empty. Unless the prayer pours freely from a love-filled heart, it does more harm than good. Love is the ultimate expression of good in the universe.

When one begins to express love, life becomes livable and purposeful. The focus then becomes, What difference can I make in my world?

So if God chose you, how can your meager effort make any difference in a big, wide world? As I sit here, I am listening to a news report that a gigantic fire has been burning out of control around Los Angeles. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land are being destroyed. The damages are estimated to be in the billions of dollars. Only a little spark started it. The small but significant efforts of all