The Little Matchbox

 

We are all little matchboxes.  Small, in the scheme of the universe.  We have only a limited life span, and a cap on how many chances we have to be useful,  to accomplish that which we were made for.  Maybe some of us feel like we've been left on a forgotten shelf somewhere for a time.  Or we've relegated ourselves away , knowing we've tried and tried in life but not made as much of ourselves as we'd hoped.  Perhaps we'd hidden in shame and were subsisting in denial of further ambitions; we'd simply come to the end of our tether.  But not a day passes when we don't secretly lament that deep within us there is potential for something amazing, if only we could use it.   Yet for some reason, that last match in a near empty matchbox sits in a corner. Unstruck.  

 

Don't we all know how that is?  Haven't we all been there? How many times have we struck a match unsuccessfully - because it was a sodden squib, snapped in half, or there were prevailing gale force winds - and there followed a failure to ignite.  We've all known the deep disappointment and despair of our shortcomings.  For most of us there is a wide gap between our bravest imaginings, and the earthbound reality of what we think we can never accomplish.

 

Then one fine day, perhaps we'd been listless and unfocussed, because we hadn't taken that one step that released our true potential -  in our rummagings and ruminations we rediscover that forgotten match box.  Gingerly we flick it off the high wall shelf where cobwebs and dead dreams have gathered, slide open the dusty cover to find, in equal measure of joy and sorrow, that we have one solitary match left.  What then would you do?  Leave it, because you've got other fish to fry, and tell yourself that this would be on an electric hob, so no match is needed?  Play it safe, nurse it for a rainy day?  It's never a good idea if you are a match and it's a rainy day! Wait, till it feels right? When do we ever feel things are just right?  

 

Or strike, as the need has arisen?  It's now, or never.

 

Perhaps for all of us we only ever have one chance to reach our full potential and make a difference in life: to the world, or just for ourselves.  One note to sing to tingle the spine, one tango to burn across a moonlit floor, one leap of ecstatic flight off a misty mountain edge.  To strike our last match would be extremely risky because we could get snuffed out in mid-burn.  But it could mean the difference between coming truly alive, for once in our lives; or watching the windows of opportunity fling open then shut, and forever know that yet again we'd missed the boat.  Thereafter we merely exist, not live, in the shadow of unfulfilment.

 

IIf only we had the wherewithall to dig deep into ourselves, and take hold of that final ounce of courage, that last drop of faith, the absolute end of our hope - and strike at life with all we could muster.  We could birth something which would burst into an incredible conflagration.   We open our lungs and the song that erupts from our pent up soul shatters glass.  We dance with every fibre of our being, twirl like a dervish drunk with love, with scant regard for who might be watching.  We soar, lifted by the thermals of the Spirit, float weightless in the wideness of God's broad grin, look beyond the horizon to eternity.   There is just no telling who else would catch our momentary vision, feed on our heat to gather their own momentum, and combust like that opening scene in Mission Impossible: a delicious sizzle that leads to who knows where, who knows where...

 

We would burn with a holy fire that sets the whole world alight. It won't last forever, but for as long as our tiny flame blazes with all its might, we would explode with joy within that finally, finally we have spent ourselves in the one way we were always meant to.  Surely that would be some way to go - with a bang and laughter of fireworks, and not a whimper of damp mediocrity.