I once read of a woman who was honored for 27 years of volunteer service. Since the woman was 93 years old that means she began her volunteer career when she was 66.

Long after the time when folks are beginning to think of ways they can pamper themselves in retirement, this devoted woman found new ways of serving others.

I have a hunch that the way she is spending her so-called leisure years is far more invigorating and rewarding than the way most of us spend our so-called productive years.

There is a wonderful story of a rabbi named Sasha who was nearing death. Sasha was troubled and distressed. His friends gently taunted him...

"What is the matter, Sasha? Are you afraid that God will damn you for not being Moses?

"No," replied the wise old teacher, "for not being Sasha."

I still am haunted by that powerful scene from the movie "On the Waterfront" where Marlon Brando weeps to his brother, Lee J. Cobb..."I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody."

The greatest of tragedies is to waste the gift of our lives. We do that when we focus our energy and attention on the things that ultimately do not matter.

Things like things.

In Yiddish there is a word to describe what really matters. The word is "mensch" and although it can’t be perfectly translated into English, the best definition is "human being"...but it means so much more than that.

To be a mensch is not a biological description. It is a spiritual one. It means to be all that God intends a person to be.

Long ago, God offered a model of a real mensch. Although he didn’t live a particularly long life, it was a full and rich one. This mensch spent his years living for others and in so doing showed us what it means to really be a human being.

St. Athanasius said, "He became what we are that he might make us what he is."

A real mensch.

One of the great late blooming mensches was Alfred Nobel, the chemist who made his vast fortune developing explosives.

Toward the end of his career, Nobel had a life-changing experience. One day there was an accident at the factory and his brother was killed. By mistake, one of the papers ran Alfred’s obituary instead and he had the unusual experience of discovering precisely what he would be remembered for.

It left him empty.

Making tons of money and building a vast financial empire seemed meaningless in the shadow of death and so he determined to change and, of course, established am endowment of giving away what he had made.

The Nobel Peace Prize is vivid evidence of what can happen when we discover what it means to be a real human being.

It is the discovery of the joy of living for others.

Jesus told his followers that heaven was not a place of receiving but giving.

We can enter into that wonderful kingdom right now, he said.

Whenever we begin living for others.

Whenever we decide to be a real mensch.