Cabot Brown Reading
Delivered at Marvin Shagam Memorial Service
Meditation
Rabbi Alvin I. Fine
Birth is a beginning
And death a destination.
And life is a journey:
From childhood to maturity
And youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
And ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion
And then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength
Or strength to weakness
And, often, back again.
From health to sickness
And back, we pray, to health again.
From offense to forgiveness
From loneliness to love
From joy to gratitude
From pain to compassion
And grief to understanding
From fear to faith.
From defeat to defeat to defeat
Until, looking backward or ahead,
We see that victory lies
Not at some high places along the way,
But in having made the journey, stage by stage,
A sacred journey.
Birth is a beginning
And death is a destination,
And life is a journey,
A sacred pilgrimage;
To life everlasting.
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A college preparatory boarding school for grades 9-12
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