When there is nothing other than this life to live for what you are left with is misery – pain – temporary pleasure that is often interrupted by more misery and pain.

There are many in this world that experience the pain, misery and problems of this world and nothing other than this moment in time to live for. It is all of the pain and misery of the world, that leads us to live for immediate pleasure of life because that is all there is. In fact, that song is nothing more than grieving about the world with no hope. That song is a 12 min song that represents a lot of emotions that people feel in this world. He said that life stinks, all things end, there is no hope and the faster you get to this understanding the better. I talked with the guy I was working with about the song and he said that this guy was the voice of his generation. It was a bit of a stream of consciousness songs that had him talking about how death is better than life – and a whole bunch of other things, which finally led him to start screaming expletives at the end. But, as he kept writing, the song started taking some really crazy twists. Jim Morrison the author of the song had broken up with his girlfriend and he was writing a song about endings. That was the first time I had actually listened to the lyrics of this song and it was depressing. One of the songs we listened to was called The End. We listened to a lot of music from a band called The Doors. As we cleaned he picked the music we listened to and I was forced to listen to a lot of Psychedelic music from the 60’s. The guy I was with was one of those Vets.

One day I was assigned the job of cleaning our supply room. Because I was in a security Flight in the Air Force, all of these guys saw major combat in Vietnam. When I finally was done with training and went to my first squadron I served with several guys who were Vietnam Vets. I am actually very excited to jump into this passage and I would like to tell you why. I am glad that it worked out to be able to preach a very non-controversial passage today. Today I have the privilege of continuing the exposition of 1 Thessalonians that Pastor Daryle and the staff have started. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 – … to Serve the Living & True God But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

Let grief be a fallen leaf