It was on a RCA television – black-and-white, 18” diagonal screen – that I saw my first movie, The Ten Commandments. Made in 1956 by Cecil B. DeMille, it was the epic Bible drama (which allowed it to pass muster for our family entertainment). I was probably six when I managed to sit through the whole 3:40 runtime that made Charlton Heston, for me, forever Moses.

In true Hollywood style, DeMille spiced the film with credible backstories that kept the Bible essentials intact while adding human interest to the mix. In the Oscar-winning version, the conflict between Heston’s Moses and Yul Brynner’s Rameses created palpable tension as the two young men – raised together in Pharaoh’s palace but contending for the approval of Rameses’ father, Seti I – sought to become the likely successor to the throne.

Through intrigue, Rameses manages to betray Moses to his father through misinterpretation of the care extended by Moses to the Jews whom he had learned to be his real familial community.

Sir Cedric Hardwicke played the role of the aging Pharaoh Seti I; his unilateral sentence dismissing Moses from Egypt to become a desert wanderer caught my attention in a way that stunned me as if the story reflected true life. His pronouncement: “Let the name of Moses be stricken from every book and tablet. Stricken from every pylon and obelisk of Egypt. Let the name of Moses be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of man, for all time.”

I was six years old, for heaven’s sake, but the idea of the hero that Heston was on that screen being canceled from his generation and all that would follow terrorized me. What if you lived your whole life to make a mark, only to find that someone could dismiss your relevance for the rest of time?

The last two months have been an unusual time for me; I’ve had time to reflect and reimagine the ideological structure of my life. Alone most of the time – and facing life-or-death procedures over the next three months – what are the rock-solid certainties that I’ve taught that really need confirmation?

Here’s something that I’ve concluded without question: when you’re staring at the finish line, the things you’ve spent your life collecting or constructing are likely to shrink into near irrelevance. Reassessing the remnant to find the places where true, lasting value was certain allows you to rise above the rhetoric and stare down reality.

What have I learned? Relationships founded on eternity are the only residual from this lifetime that have lasting value.

Seti I thought that the stone monuments of Egypt were the tablets on which lasting recognition would be inscribed. Peter had a different kind of rocks in mind as the place where the memorable effects would be ensured eternity. The ultimate stone – and, the resultant stones – create a picture of solidarity: ^“As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him –  you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” (1 Peter 2:4-6).

As I’ve spent weeks alone in a small institutional room, the question of life’s lasting effect has been asked and answered, for me. I’ve been overwhelmed with the rock-solid texts/e-mails/notes/cards of people who, over a lifetime, I’ve been privileged to share Truth that has the power to impact life, for today and for the next million years.

Seti I scared the hell out of me 62 years ago; his words to Heston’s Moses made me think you could be forgotten. In contrast – over a lifetime – God’s word has put the hope of Heaven in me to know that Truth deposited into the lives of those we can impact for Eternity will never be canceled.

Still learning… though alone at the City of Hope.