Just yesterday...

I say that all the time! Just yesterday I... And then I stop myself (sometimes) when I realize that yesterday was months ago. Time is that swift. All kinds of phrases express its fleeting quality. "It seems like yesterday..." "I can't believe it has been that long." "a flash in the pan..." "Babies today, graduating from college tomorrow." "Enjoy them while they're young. They grow up so fast."

I was looking at vacation pictures today from two years ago in Germany. It doesn't seem that long. The baby in the pictures can walk and talk and dress herself now. The toddler is in school. The mother probably does not need an au pair ever again.

I was talking to my son about college today. It is such an exciting time of life. For most of us, it's only four years. Poof. Over and done.

Much of our memories are like a blur. The kind where you look at things close by from the side window of a car or train. You can hardly make out what you're seeing. You look at photos of yourself and what you were doing, and they hardly seem real any more. And yet a few stand out vividly. A special moment captured and branded on your mind.

Because, excuse the cliche, life is short, do we try to pack in as much as possible? No. I don't advocate that. The quiet, empty moments are important, too. They give us time to reflect, catch our breath, and renew our reserves for what is to come. We don't want our lives so full, that we don't have time to treasure what we did just yesterday.

Death Comes in Small Packages

Life is full of choices and often the most important are so small they are overlooked. The big picture looms ever before us, and for Christians that picture usually takes the form of getting to heaven. But I contend that that vision falls short of the truest goal of all: becoming like Christ, so that we can endure entering his presence, so that we can desire being in his presence, so that we can lose ourselves in his presence for all time. Losing is not to say that we cease to exist, but that our existence becomes a trifling to us, compared to the One we have devoted all our strivings to see.

To get to that goal a staggering journey awaits us, though the steps that lead us there can be tiny. Some can march forth in great strides. Others progress along the way like a cheetah in full gallop. Most of us toddle, stumble, fall and rise again, not always pointing in the right direction, but erect and moving...somewhere. We often feel leaden, the horizon never changes before us, or we seem to be swimming upstream and passing the same landmarks over and over again. Somehow we haven't learned a lesson, so it repeats and repeats like a scratched record, until someone lifts the arm to skip the fault.

And each stride, gallop, tottering forward is a death of sorts, leading to the last death--the veil that separates us from our goal. What impedes our progress? Our own free-will making choices that either help us or hinder us. The big picture choices are often easy to make. It's the little ones that annoy us like a buzzing mosquito that we feel we shouldn't have to endure. We slap and wave off and fuss, but it's still there waiting for a chance to land unawares and be nourished at our expense. If we would just be patient and let it land, then we can pick it off. A little death of a mosquito, a little death of impatience.

What other little deaths do we encounter? A death to the need to be right. A death to indulging ourselves too much. A death to criticizing. A death to anger at receiving criticism. A death to love of possessions. A death to rebellion against aging, failing health, lack of success, authority.. Death can come in small packages. Let's not overlook the opportunity to be remade into the image of God's only Son, who embraced little deaths daily and the final death on the cross for us.

Irksome Tasks

Faced with a list of chores, none of which inspires enthusiasm, one can wonder how any will get done. It is not the jobs themselves that is the problem. Even time is usually not the problem. It is a matter of will. We often find that once we've begun one of these irksome tasks, we settle into a contented rhythm of movement that leads us to the completion of a mild unpleasantness. The old adage, "once begun, half done" is a terse truth. Even when we feel the real obstacle is fatigue, it is more often ennui that is dispersed with a sincere beginning. What we often cannot see at the outset is the heightened enjoyment and satisfaction we experience at the completion: an onerous job behind us and a pleasure in surveying our labor. The more distasteful or monumental the hurdle, the more often we find ourselves returning to overview results and give ourselves credit for persevering. Work gives us dignity. Challenging work gives us a rightful pride. A completed manuscript, a scoured bathroom, a purged closet, clean gutters, whatever it is that we shun but do, strengthens us. We grow in virtue each time we say yes to the labor; we grow in holiness when we say yes without grumbling.

What's it to you?

Rain for a gardener is a blessing.
Rain for a beach bum is a bummer.
Rain for a duck is just another day.
Rain for a weatherman is a good call.
Rain for a desert nomad is a miracle.
Rain for a outdoor wedding party is a glitch in the plans.
Rain for a baseball player is waiting, delays, frustration.
Rain for Santa Claus is out of place.
Rain for a picnic is dreary.
Rain for a day on the road is fatiguing.
Rain for a funeral is extra tears.
Rain for Noah is a confirmation.
Rain for a drought is an answer to prayer.
Rain for the heat is relief.
Rain for the thirsty is joy.

Hello?

Is there anybody out there?

I'm sorry I can't hear you. Um. A little louder, please.

OK. No one's there.... I think.

Just in case, bye.

I could have died...

If we look back on our lives we can often find not just one or two, but numerous times when we could have entered heaven right then. For instance, when I was too young to remember, my mother tells me of a time traveling in the car to Kansas. My dad pulled in the left lane to pass a car (before all the interstate highway roads had been completed). It was quitting time at a factory they just passed, and the guy my dad was passing must have thought it was a buddy of his. So he decides to play chicken and not let us get by. There was an oncoming car, and at the last second the jerk looked over, was surprised to see we were not who he expected, and quickly pulled aside to avoid a collision.

When I was a kid old enough to remember, my mom was driving me and a whole bunch of other kids in a station wagon on a country road (speed limit 45). Someone pulled in front of her at an intersection and she went around that car on two wheels. When the car bounced down again, she went up on the other two wheels to avoid a head-on collision with a car coming towards her. Since there were no seat belts yet, it would have been very ugly if my mom hadn't been able to drive like a top Hollywood stunt man that day.

When I was fifteen, my sister and I were driving home from school on that same country road. An oncoming car lost control and narrowly missed hitting us. When they came to a stop in a horse pasture, no one was left in the vehicle. They were spewed out all over that field and in need of an ambulance.

When I was eighteen I came very close to being struck by lightning.

When I was twenty-three I got pneumonia. Without modern medicine, who knows what would have happened. Thank God for vaccines, too.

When I was twenty-five I hemorrhaged badly during a miscarriage. I can still remember vividly what it was like to lie there on a gurney in a warm pool of blood. It was about four units worth. I received two units of blood that day. Within a couple years after this event they decided it was time to start screening blood for the AIDS virus...

When I was around thirty-one or two, I was walking my two young boys down Packard Road. John was dawdling and looking at everything in every sidewalk crack. I kept urging him to speed up. Suddenly a car left the road, ran over a street sign, and stopped a few dozen feet in front of us on the sidewalk. We might have been at that spot if John had been persuaded to truck along. The driver was a mom who said she was trying to swat her kid in the backseat when she left the road.

When I was thirty-seven, I was driving with a bunch of kids in my car. Suddenly I felt very unsafe and prayed out loud for protection. Immediately after that prayer a car that passed me swerved into the other lane and hit the car behind me head-on. Was that my guardian angel, or what?

When I was teaching some of our kids to drive we had a close one on the highway. Let's just say that the individual lost control of the car, swerved back and forth several times and then spun around and stopped facing the semis coming towards us. It was perhaps fortunate that it was nighttime, since our headlights helped alert the oncoming traffic that something was wrong. Needless to say I said some fast, screaming prayers, and those semis managed to go by us, one on each side.

So without much digging, I've managed to think of nine times my life was in danger of ending. It can happen any time to anyone. Each day is a gift.

Never Fear

So many things hang over our heads, like vultures waiting to gorge on the failures. We live in a culture that fears failure and demands excellence, perfection, and competitive lust for success. Certainly doing one's best is a good thing, but too often unspoken standards "out there" paralyze us from doing anything at all. We convince ourselves it is better not to try and avoid embarrassment if it doesn't work out.

And yet, I've learned the most from my failures, and I rejoice in those experiences. Some of them taught me that I was not talented in that sphere. Other times I've learned from what went wrong and did it better the next time around. And sometimes the learning was all I wanted, and did not feel compelled to go at it again.

Once I had a very bad teaching experience. I vowed that that was it--no more classroom teaching for me. Today I live to teach in the classroom. Necessity forced me back, and I learned from each return to the classroom, grew as a teacher, and found that I loved it after all. If fear had ruled my decision, my best gifts would have been buried in anxiety.

Today I am embarking on another task that I am anxious about. I am procrastinating. It is yet undetermined if I will succeed, only pass muster, or entirely fail. But I will learn on the journey, and not be paralyzed by fear.