October 25, 2004

[Rev. Doc]

Fame

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven."
Matthew 6:1

Most people are looking for their 15 minutes of glory. However, most people live and are forgotten relatively quickly by others in this world.

His initials were W.W., and in the 1930s and 1940s they were enough to identify him to most of America. He was widely considered the creator of modern gossip writing, and in his heyday this rude, abrasive, egotistical and witty man was the country's best known and most widely read journalist and one of its most influential. In 1943, when there were 140 million people in the United States, more than 50 million of them read his gossip column every day in more than 1000 newspapers, including his flagship, The New York Daily Mirror. Even more people listened to his weekly radio broadcast. Hated, feared and revered, he presided over Table 50 of the Stork Club in New York, creating and destroying celebrities at the drop of his trademark gray snap-brim fedora. Yet when he died in 1972, at age 74, he was practically forgotten. Only two people attended his funeral; his daughter, Walda, and the rabbi who officiated at his services. Today, not many people under 40 even know the name of Walter Winchell.

Would it not be better, instead of looking for fame in this life, to live in such a way that the one who remembers you in the end is God.

Prayer: Ask the Lord to help you not to be concerned with your popularity and fame in this life, but the treasures you stored up in the life to come.

"I would rather have people ask 'Why isn't there a statue to Cato? than 'Why is there one?'"
~Cato the Elder

[shooraijin]

A fascinating story but one we ought not forget. Thanks, RD.