Rambling Reminiscence

I just celebrated birthday number seventy-two. That means I am halfway to perfection (6x12 v. 12x12). I know perfection is not attainable in this life, least of all my life. I have had so many years thinking I was near perfect; those years are a stain on my record from my current perspective. Somebody said the more you know the more you realize how much you don’t know. I’m at the stage of realizing how much I really don’t know. Wisdom is supposed to come with age, but I feel like the guy who said he was too soon old and too late smart.

Back in April I wrote a blog called “Happy Birthday to Me.” April 21, 1963, was my second-birth day. Jesus called it being born from above meaning born of the spirit. I remained a baby in that new life for about ten years until I realized what it meant to live in the spirit. The Bible became the most important tool in my life, but I started using it as a hammer and probably did more harm than good. By God’s grace I slowly learned that there were more tools in the Bible box besides the hammer. I still have a tendency to reach for it once in a while, but I am getting better at looking for the right tool instead of whacking away with something hard and heavy.

The Psalmist says our years are three score and ten or four score at best. That means I am already in my bonus years. I’m not anxious to get gone, but I’m ready. Truthfully, I don’t know how much more of the world’s decline I want to witness. The Bible promises that towards the end, things will get worse and worse. If I have my mom’s longevity genes, I could have another 20-30 years; I shudder to think what they might bring. I feel bad for my grandchildren. The world they are inheriting seems far scarier than the one we’ve known. But they have grown up with computers, the Internet, artificial intelligence, existential threats from China and radical Islam, and a pagan America. They’ll probably look back on us the way we look and the cowboys and Indians.

A few years ago, I wrote this poem.

VITAL SIGNS

 

Boxers and bifocals like it or not

Signs of age litter what youth you've still got.

Back pain and joint stiffness come all too soon

To mock sturdy effort like naps after noon.

Dentures and hair loss and spots on the skin

Make even the bold long for youth once again.

Sports cars and speed boats and exercise bikes

Drive childish foolishness to manly new heights.

Rooms full of emptiness: spare rooms and dens;

His room or her room back when time was when.

No more long vigils where morning steals night,

Languishing, hoping the kids are alright.

Washers and dryers and phones all sit quiet;

Mozart and Bach no longer cause riots.

Children bring grandchildren home for a visit;

This isn't the true second childhood, is it?

 

Sometimes I do wish I could be a child again. Science tells us that the human brain stops developing sometime in one’s twenties. (My wife says mine stopped at about thirteen.) This would explain why I don’ t feel like I’m seventy-two. I remember being at my mom’s house for lunch on my fiftieth birthday. She told me she couldn't believe I was fifty because she didn’t feel fifty. She was eighty-four. I didn’t believe her then; I do now. I have a child nearing fifty; I don’t see how that could be possible. I am also in the fifty-third year of marriage to my high school sweetheart. That too seems impossible until I begin to remember all the houses and jobs and situations we have lived through.

When I reminisce about things in the past, I sometimes feel like I’ve lost something. Then I remind myself that Tennyson said to have loved and lost is better than to never have loved at all. The boats, the bikes, the cars, the trips, the special times with my loved ones all belong to my story and contribute to who I am. My life has also impacted many others, not least of all my wife and children. I think of the hundreds of kids I had in my teaching career or the tens of thousands who have read my blog. I am reminded of the song by Ray Boltz from years ago, “Thank You.” He imagined getting to Heaven and seeing a line of people coming to him with thanks for little things he did that changed their lives. I wonder what my line will look like.

The thing that concerns me most when I look back is whether I have made my life count for Christ. I have been a faithful, loving husband (though not perfect). We raised three kids who came to know the Lord and have made Christian homes for our six grandchildren. I have been in church almost every Sunday for seventy-two years (not that that means anything). I have tried to fulfill God’s calling and gift as a teacher vocationally and otherwise. I can’t stop thinking that I could have done more – should have done more. I have run the race and fought the fight. I’m not as confident as Paul who finished that thought with his expectation of a crown awaiting him in Heaven.

I am confident of this much: I know I will meet Jesus one day, and it won’t be a sad day. The believer’s judgment is not about what we have done; it’s about Who we know. I know Christ as my Savior. That’s all anyone really needs to know. I just hope I can make the best of whatever days I have left. The refrain from a well-known poem by C.T. Studd rings true: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.”