Principled living gives meaning to death.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Business leadership conference held at Colorado Christian University

LARRY DONNITHORNE, PRESIDENT OF Colorado Christian University, quoted Shakespeare in his opening talk to the school's annual VALS conference March 30. The title for CCU's School of Business and Leadership conference is an acronym for Values-Aligned Leadership Summit, and it brings together values-oriented business leaders to mix with CCU's young-adult students.

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Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." Those are Macbeth's words as he learns of Lady Macbeth's death during the last act of the play. Donnithorne was quoting them to illustrate to the business students two different ways people view life: Macbeth's, which holds to the futility of living a principled life, and Donnithorne's, which argues for holding fast to business ethics for the greater good.

The university president's words resonated loudly when both Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II died within days of each other soon after the VALS speech.

Death defines our lives. It puts a punctuation mark on the end of our life. It's what ends each of our stories. It's what forces us to decide whether to live a principled, ethical life--or no. It's what makes us spiritual. It's what makes us decide to make the world a better place while we live. Collectively, it's what pressures humanity to become more civilized.

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