Can You Imagine . . .

Can you imagine life without Scarlett O’Hara? Or Rhett Butler?

Remember the scene in “Gone With the Wind” when Scarlett’s green eyes spotted the expensive, plush curtains hanging in the windows of her family’s plantation? Then, before you could whistle “Dixie,” she was wearing a beautiful newly-sewn dress during a meeting with Rhett.

Of course, that scene gave birth to Carol Burnett’s side-splitting parody, “The Curtain Rod Dress.”

I can’t imagine my life without knowing about Dorothy and Toto and Glinda, the Good Witch. Or never seeing Julie Andrews spread her arms and sing so joyfully in the middle of the Austrian Alps.

What richness those scenes have brought into our popular culture and into our lives.

If scenes from movies and TV have enriched us, think what the kindness of others has done. I have been blessed by so many people. One of them is named Donna.

She moved in next door to me about the time that I turned 40. She was a prayer warrior and a faithful reader of the Bible – both the Old and the New Testaments.

We became close friends, and she encouraged me to read a little section of the Bible every day. I took her advice, and it changed my life, enriching it beyond words. I can’t imagine my life without her friendship and her guidance.

If you are reading this column, the chances are that you are a Catholic Christian. Can you imagine your life without Jesus in it?

What if He hadn’t arrived yet? Or what if we didn’t know about Him?

What if we didn’t know to turn the other cheek? What if we hadn’t heard the sacred words from the Beatitudes?

What if we still lived with the Old Testament mandate of an eye for an eye — until everyone was blind?

I recently read the book, “Face to Face with Jesus,” written by Samaa Habib. She was raised Muslim in the Middle East, but converted to Christianity as a young adult. She tells a powerful story of her conversion, of the violence she endured as a new Christian, and of how the word of God gave her comfort.

Most importantly, for me, she wrote about a life without Christ and a life transformed because Christ became its center.

Because of her conversion, she was emboldened to “live fearlessly for Jesus Christ.”

After her conversion, she obeyed Matthew 28 and reached out to other Muslims, telling them the Good News: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

At the end of her book, she writes about living the words from Matthew 22, which tell us to love God first and then to love our neighbor as ourselves. Her words and her story are a blessing.

We each have so many blessings in our lives. Family. Friends. Faith. I can’t imagine my life without them.