OUR RESUME VS OUR EULOGY

OUR RESUME VS OUR EULOGY

Fr Luke A Veronis

What’s the difference between a résumé and a eulogy? Well, on this Memorial Weekend Sunday, I want us to reflect on what the difference is between a résumé and a eulogy, and ask ourselves whether we are building up our résumé attributes or our eulogy virtues in our life.

Typically, a résumé is a document where we present our background, education, skills, and accomplishments in order to impress others, specifically when trying to get a job. We want to show who we are, what we’ve done, what our potential is, and how we can be successful if someone hires us.

A eulogy, on the other hand, is typically a sermon or speech given at a funeral or memorial that highlights the virtues of one’s life. The focus isn’t necessarily on worldly success but more on the virtues that we can carry with us into eternity.

A résumé and a eulogy are quite different – and the question I want all of us to wrestle with today is which of these two are we building up in our lives? Which are we spending time, putting forth effort, and conscientiously developing in our lives – our resume or our eulogy?

On this memorial weekend, when our country pauses to remember all the military who have died while serving in the Armed Forces, and all of us use it as an opportunity to remember and pray for our own loved ones who have left this life and gone on to meet the Lord, it’s also an appropriate time to reflect on our own mortality. One day in the not too far along future, others will be remembering and reminiscing about us. We will be gone. But what will we have left behind? What will be our legacy and what will be the eulogy others will say about us?

Let’s go back to the résumé versus eulogy idea. You see, the success which a résumé may predict and the eternal virtues that God deems successful are actually quite different. A great résumé may lead someone to become a resounding success in the world’s eyes – with wealth, fame, prosperity, popularity, and all the comforts of life. Yet, what the world calls a resounding success, God may bluntly call foolishness!

Our Lord is unimpressed with worldly success. He is much more impressed with how we achieved that success, with what we did with that success, and whether we used whatever talents, gifts, treasures and life itself, which God ultimately gave us, in a way that brought glory to His name. What the Lord wants to see is whether we have acknowledged Him as the Source of all blessings, and then used these blessings in humble and wise ways to bless others.

Jesus Christ is not interested in how much wealth we have amassed but how humble and how generous we have been in sharing that wealth with others. He’s not interested in how popular we are in society but whether we have acted as good and faithful stewards with all that we have received in life.

A résumé will try to emphasize all our educational accomplishments to show how smart we are; a eulogy will note how wise we were in life, acting as humble instruments in God’s hands.

A résumé will try to note how hard and diligent we will work; a eulogy will highlight what we did with our time to love others, to help one another, and to care especially for the least of our brothers and sisters, the stranger, the foreigner, the marginalized and rejected in society.

Remember, what the world values may be of little importance to God. As we remember all our loved ones who have gone on to the Lord, what do we remember about them – do we remember the things they had or the people they were? Do we remember their accomplishments, or do we cherish the love with which they lived?

Think about this:

If someone had a big, beautiful mansion of a house, that means little to God.

If someone had fancy cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, that means little to God.

If someone died with a wealthy financial portfolio, and was able to retire at a young age and enjoy their old age playing golf or spending their time in some other recreational hobby, that would not impress God.

If someone was famous and had millions of followers on social media, God is unimpressed. He’ll want to know, however, what this person did with the platform they had? Did they use it to feed their ego or to glorify God? Did they use it to fulfill their self-centered desires or to bless others? Did they use it to create divisions and feed the darkness or to help people love one another and love their Creator? Fame means nothing in God’s eyes. What we do with whatever platform we are given reflects who we truly are.

On this Memorial Day Sunday, I want all of us to reflect on what we want others to say in our eulogy? One day we will die. And our death may come sooner than we like. Ask yourself, “How am I living my life now and what eulogy am I creating that others will say about me?”

David Brooks, a NY Times opinion columnist, notes that “there are two selves within each of us: the self who craves worldly ambitious success, who builds a resume, and the self who seeks connection, community, and love — the values that make for a great eulogy.” One wants to conquer the world. The other wants to conquer themselves in order to develop their character and offer themselves back to the world.

Brooks uses Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik book The Lonely Man of Faith to state: “We live in perpetual self-confrontation between the external success and the internal value. And the tricky thing about these two sides of our nature is they work by different logics. The resume logic is an economic logic: input leads to output, risk leads to reward. The eulogy side of our nature is a moral logic and often an inverse logic. You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer the desire to get what you want. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.”

Our resume or our eulogy. What are we developing in our lives today. On this memorial day weekend, let us focus on our eulogy and live life in a way that will offer lots of good material for a memorable eulogy!