I was at a wake yesterday – the wake of the father of my pastor.

There was only one reason for me to be there. It was respect I had for my pastor – a friend, a brother, and at times a father figure, whom have given me encouragement and concern when I needed it.

So, what measures a man’s legacy? The financial or political empire he built? The impact of his ideas to mankind? Or just simply, the family he left behind? I sat there amazed, hearing the testimonies of sons and their wives, grandchildren, family friends, and even those whose lives the man has touched, came forward speaking fondly, and often in sobs, of the man who has passed away – a man whom I do not really know and have met only once in better times. Yet among the sorrow, there was a joy, a joy that the man has lived his life to the fullest, with the full knowledge that the man has run the good race and will now pass on to a better life beyond into the embrace of God.

As I sat there I saw a family of 8 sons and brothers who speaks fondly and lovingly of one another, I saw daughters-in-laws whom acknowledges and affirms one another in testimonies, and I saw grandchildren who bears witness to the kindness, and the gentleness of the man. And I also see his legacy in his son, the pastor whom I respected.

While his legacy may be nothing to most as it is not as significant as the founding a financial or political empire, or even taking a country from rags to riches, but the lives this man has touched, will go on to touch more and make an impact on society on a level more substantial than just one’s physiological and security needs. In that, I see a giant, and a person who has lived as a living testimony of Jesus Christ, leaving behind shoes too big for his sons to fill, and a great legacy for his descendants to carry on.

Yet, among this humanity, I lament this as a dying trait. More often we see family torn asunder, fighting over the material legacy of those who passed before them.

A brother-in-Christ whom gave a short message at the wake said this: If the past 8 years were any indication, the 21st century will be remembered as the century of dehumanization. It is a century that maybe remembered for nothing else but the downgrade of the human race’s uniqueness as equivalent is drawn between man and beast, the attacks on the sacred institutions of marriage and the sanctity of life, the collapse of traditional values of family bond, plus the ability of people to take up a complete altered ego and be someone (or perhaps, something) else on the Internet.

You are free to disagree. But it got me thinking: As we become more affluent, did we lose our humanity? Perhaps we simply did not realize what we lost when Adam lost Eden and the everlasting relationship with God, Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Universe.

I have much to think about and reflect upon. And I have much to confess to God and seek His forgiveness.