If I come to the end of my life having lived my dash by these principles, I will feel good about my legacy. Our time as their youth leaders provided some of the most fulfilling experiences of both my husbands’ and my dashes. No doubt, this was an amazing group of young adults. Make a difference in the lives of others.Use your gifts to make the world you live in just a little bit better everyday. They knew how the next verse in the poem ended before I read it: “ What matters is how we live and love, and how we spend our dash.”Īt the end of our program that day, we had developed a list of “Themes for Living Your Dash Well”: I had not read the rest of the poem to them, but they already knew that the key to living your dash is not about how much cash you have, how big your house is, or what kind of car you drive (even though some did want nice cars too :)). Overwhelmingly, the young men and young women, did not focus on money or fame, they focused on the heart of life: loving others, helping others, serving others.īy the end of our sharing time, I was in tears and could not have been more proud, or more humbled by the beautiful hearts of these special young people. They talked about becoming teachers of special needs children being doctors who discovered new treatments to help cure cancer and AIDS and serving in the military to protect our country’s freedom (not surprising since we lived near 2 Marine bases and a military Air Station). They spoke about being wives and husbands and good mothers and fathers who loved and protected their children. I was blown away by the way these young people understood what would really matter at the end of their life’s journey. There was the occasional “He was a millionaire before he was 30 years old and bought a Porsche”, but the overwhelming majority of responses were not about money or power or fame. My husband and I could not have been more proud of the responses that these young people shared with us. After about 15 minutes, we gathered back together to share our dash stories. When you get to the end of your life and look back at your dash, what will you see? What will the people who knew you and loved you say about your dash?” I asked each young person to start their sentences with “She was” or “He was” – as if the responses were coming from someone who had known them.Īgain, you could have heard a pin drop, as our students split apart to find a quiet space in the youth center to thoughtfully consider what they wanted their dash to say about them. Think about the life you have led so far and the time that you have yet to live. I finished reading verse 3 and told them what I wanted them to do: “I want each of you to spend a few moments thinking about your dash. I admit to being a little shocked by how quiet the group was as I read these words – with rapt attention, they listened intently and you could have heard a pin drop. He noted that first came the date of birth He referred to the dates on the tombstone I asked each of them to fill in their name and date of birth at the top of their tombstone and then I began reading the Live Your Dash poem, ending with verse 3: At first, it was obvious that I had shocked these amazing young people, at least a little bit, but the shock was soon replaced with curiosity as they waited to hear where this was going. I held up a filled in tombstone with my name written in above the dash line, and the date of my birth to the left of the dash. The first thing I did was give them each a piece of paper with a blank tombstone on it and a dash in the middle. The dash represents our life, and more importantly, what we do with our life.Īt the youth group that evening, we were surrounded by about 15 young people between the ages of 13 and 18. But the most important part of the inscription is the dash. I have included a link to the entire poem at the end of this blog, but essentially the premise is that on every person’s tombstone, two dates are connected by a dash - the date of our birth and the date of our death. I created a program around this poem that turned out to be one of the most engaging conversations we had ever had with that group of amazing young people. At the time, my husband was the youth director at our church and I used to help him with the devotional programs at the youth group meetings on Sunday evenings. Many years ago, I came across a poem called “ Live Your Dash” by Linda Ellis.
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