Welcome, everyone. This will be a platform for my reflections and observations, such as they are.
My hope and desire is that someone will read what I have to say and think "You too? I thought I was the only one." If that's you, leave a comment or send a message. I enjoy getting feedback, good, bad, or indifferent.
A question that comes to mind as I write this morning:
If you didn't know what age you were, what age would you be?
I had a girl in college tell me once that she thought I was an 'old soul'. At the time I took it to mean that I had an air of sophistication and allure, but I was prone to many errors as a teenager. What it means to me now is that one understands oneself as part of a whole, making contributions to that whole instead of viewing the world as merely a playground sandbox for building ones own pleasure and fulfillment. But this doesn't necessarily come with age- so one of the questions that the above question spins off is, what's the difference between age and maturity?
I've heard maturity defined as the ability to delay gratification. Forbearing from the donut or pizza today so you can run a 5k and fit into your high school jeans, or packing your lunch so you can invest in your kid's college fund or save up for car repairs. There are many examples. But, like Jerry Seinfeld commented on the Tonight Show some years back, "Everyone is trying to lose weight, and nobody is doing it."
Also, what about this phrase, "for the young at heart?" There is certainly a childlike wonder that fills the heart with joy and possibilities when one looks at the world. There's a tendency for 'maturity' to take the form of a sober, even morose stoicism, and, indeed, the older one gets and the more tragedy one sees and experiences, the more illusive and even illusory that wonder becomes. Christ said that we must "become as little children" to enter the kingdom of heaven. So, is this joy is a component of maturity, or its necessary companion?
I believe that we're put on this Earth to become more Christ-like by cultivating wisdom and virtue, and to live lives of sacrificial service to other people. Contemplating what that means is a worthy pursuit. So for me, the goal of any life is to become wise, and apply that wisdom to the challenge to helping people, whatever that looks like.
Some parts of becoming wiser aren't optional- we can't stop the passage of time, so we all get older. Check. We all have experiences. Check again. But, and this seems dumb to me sometimes- while suffering is not optional, learning from it is.
We all have a choice about how to respond to the things that happen to us.
I also believe that the soul was designed to run on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. The more of these things you surround yourself with, the more your soul will thrive, and the closer to God you will draw.
So, to wrap this up, I'll answer my own question- there are days when I feel about eighty-five, and all I can think about is the end of the line. There aren't many days when I feel like I'm five and dance and play and eat candy, but there are many minutes and hours. There's a bolt of joy that goes through me when I hear certain music or see certain things that's like the bolt of fear that goes through an arachnophobe when they see a spider. But I must confess that I often come at things from a duty-driven perspective, and it can be tough to find joy in that outlook. Tim Keller calls it "duty without beauty." As such, I have to work extra hard to allow myself to contemplate Good and Beautiful things, and to keep the muscles that allow me to do that strong.
Here's a poem for you to contemplate. It's a bit of a downer, but it's short and sweet and gives some words to the feeling of longing that we all feel from time to time. It's by a Yorkshireman named A.E. Houseman, and it's good to recite it on days when I feel like I'm a hundred years old.
Into my heart, an air that kills
From yon far country blows;
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content
I see it, shining plain
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again
