AUTHOR SIDNEY GREENBERG once wrote some very interesting words about loss.
He notes that when the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris in 1911 and was missing for two years, more people went to stare at the blank space in the museum than had gone to look at the masterpiece in the twelve previous years it had hung there unmolested.
Greenberg says this intriguing bit of information tells us something important about ourselves.
“It points to our all-too human tendency to fail to take adequate note of precious things while we have them. But let one of them be taken from us and we become painfully aware of the ‘blank space’ in our lives, and our attention is sharply focused on the ‘blank space.’
“The walls of our lives are crowded with Mona Lisas,” he writes, “but we are unmindful of them. Countless blessings attend us daily and we are so insensitive to them. The more often and more regularly we receive any blessing, the less likely we are to be aware of it. What is constantly granted is easily taken for granted.”
Guest editorialist: Ken Wilson, “Creating Biblical Leaders,” p. 57
“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; AND BE THANKFUL“ (Col. 3:15–emphasis mine, mb).
INCARNATE 