Living in the Box

I found this Meme on Cheesehead in Paradise.

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!): That would be John Ortberg's When The Game is Over, It all Goes back in the Box. I'm sitting here on the couch, with tons of books sitting around, but that one was in my computer bag, leaning against the couch.

Find Page 123 and find the first 5 sentences. Page 123 is actually the first page of a chapter. The first 5 sentences are the introductory paragraph of the chapter called "Fill Each Square with What Matters Most."

Post the next 3 sentences. The next three sentences are from a quote by Lewis Smedes:

I bought a brand new date-book yesterday, the kind I use every year -- spiral-bound, black imitation leather covers wrapped around pages and pages of blank boxes. Every square has a number to tell me which day of the month I'm in at the moment. Every square is a frame for one episode of my life.

I can't let the story end there, because it is a long quote, and a good one. Smedes goes on to say that each square will eventually be filled with his activities for the day -- classes, lunches, meetings. Many things won't make it onto the calendar, but will be squeezed into the day -- cups of coffee, lovemaking, prayers, and hopefully, good deeds. He lives one square at a time, and the lines of the squares are the walls of time that organize his life. Each box has an invisible door that links it to the next box. The door opens, and he is pulled through to the next box.

One day he will walk into a square with no door to the next square. "One of the squares will be terminal. I do not know which square it will be."