I know I am a blessed man even as my body breaks down; battered and burdened by time. My life measured in decades of days. An earthy existence that’s eluded millions and millions of my brothers and sisters who never attained the years I have been given in this dimension.
As I near the last year of my half century here, my goodbye list continues to grow. It’s pace only accelerating while its admission and capacity rises in numbers. My own mortality whispers to me, reminding me of my impending death. Knowing that whatever time God grants me in this realm will no longer rival my past. The majority of my life is now behind me; winter is approaching as I begin life’s final lap.
I will soon join those who I have loved who are no longer in my life and who are no longer in this world. Having slipped off their mortal coil for eternal slumber, everlasting peace and an ethereal existence. A dance we will all do alone with God.
Like the seasons themselves, every generation will pass to make way for another. All grass will wither and die, all flowers will lose their bloom and fade away, and even the mightiest oak will fall to make way for restless acorns to rise in its roots. Spring is eternal but so is winter.
The cycle of life and death in this world completing another spin around the sun. A burning ball of glowing gas until it fades forever. The de-creation of creation.
When I was in my twenties, I couldn’t picture my future fifties because my past had no perspective. My life lacked experience and evaluation. When I was young, I couldn’t comprehend anything except the minute in front of me.
A young life filled with reckless behavior, ridiculous drama and ruminations of suicide. The blessing of age helping me understand that every trial and test in my life will pass and be pulverized by time. The burden of age helping me realize that time will also pommel me; and it has.
I can feel my mind and body aging, but I can’t capture or cease time. Memories of a summer breeze that’s long passed. A gust that punches you in the gut; a wind I no longer care to chase.
My mind is flooded with past pictures; pieces of people and places no longer present. Images that maybe never existed in reality but are alive in my dreams. Hallucinations that haunt me, especially when I waver between consciousness and unconsciousness.
It’s like looking at someone else’s life but it’s mine. The same person who lacked the perspective of time in his twenties and thirties. The same person who now appreciates the perspective of time in his fifties and maybe even in his sixties.
The temporality of my life is no longer unavoidable. I can no longer distract myself from my earthly death. I’m learning to embrace my death because I want to embrace a life lacking fear. Even while knowing I will experience more suffering; potentially excruciating suffering. A trail of tears and a path of pain.
Time and aging offering me their gifts of wisdom even as my body grows weary. A gift that only happens when you realize your insignificance. The short-lived swagger of youth fading and failing.
Fifty-plus years of hard-earned wisdom blossomed by emptying my ego. Humility supplanting bravado. Humility saving me from own self-destruction. Humility is the secret salvation to all wisdom.
Discovering what every self-effacing seeker of Truth will eventually discover. Love is what sustains the world. A love so amazing, so awesome and so astounding, that evil tells us that we aren’t worthy of receiving it, relishing it and rejoicing in it.
The ultimate lie of this world because it only exists in a world filled with feelings of jealousy, arrogance and pride. Traits of my youth that still haunt and hound me. Traits that have hurt humankind since humanity happened.
In wisdom there is considerable sorrow; sorrow that will only increase as I age. But because I’m blessed and burdened by time, I’m now bound to the source of all eternal life and everlasting love. God is love.
Peace. God loves you.