Loaners

All life is on loan!

It seems to be universally

Recognized, yet unanimously not applied.


People deal with loans two ways;

(here I’m thinking about rental cars)

One figures, “It’s not mine, I’ll do whatever

I want with it, who cares?”

So they drive as fast as possible, treat it roughly,

Always stressing it to the extremes.

The other types of people figure it’s good thing

to bring it back in the condition it was received.


So life is on loan; our children and parents are loaners;

how do we live with them as being on loan and give them

a sense of our appreciation, gratitude, enjoyment?

When they leave, for whatever purpose or reason,

are they in ragged condition from their relationship with us or

leaving with a sense of being loved and cherished?


Life is on loan; how do we return our country? Is it simply

There for us to get and buy and inherit and

Move on further in our lives; more houses less

Wilderness, exhausted oil supplies and strip mining,

more exhaust on trees and plants or

Do we hand off this wonderful and beautiful land to

Others in the future with a sense of being its’ stewards?


Life is on loan, this planet is for us a resource,

a home in the universe our place in life.

Do we draw down the well of its’

resources for our personal desires causing the air, water,

and ground to be bankrupt;

Exhausted, fallow, polluted, poisonous or

Is this place a treasured home for all humanity, for nature and

Creatures to be supported and saved as well as ourselves?


Life is on loan; even our own small life among this huge place.

Do we abuse our body, exhaust our spirit and

dampen our soul into dread, disease, despair,

sometimes drinking or needling arms and toes

into oblivion or is it time to respect who we are and

accept this life we have been given with its’ struggles and

with its pleasures, with its possibilities and its shortcomings

feeling the pain and suffering, the changes of living?


Life is on loan, it’s been gift more so than only a loan;

have we opened it and shared it and used it knowing life is brief

and time bound and even while we might feel the

monotony or boredom of life some days, it is still a joyful

experience to be alive and share living with all these others,

in this place and on this earth?

















Richard W Smith
January 25, 2011