David laments in Psalm 42, “all your waves and your billows have gone over me.” The pandemic struck like a flash flood. Isolated, hidden behind masks, we long for the personal contacts we took for granted – intimate encounters from another life. Age has taught me that we are fragile, but we are also resilient. The waves will recede; we will move on. But it’s not too early to ask, “What have I learned?” Will I go back to my old life or forward to a richer, fuller one? It takes courage to live, but it takes wisdom to live well.
A stylized statement scrawled in black marker caught my eye: “Victor was here.” Who was Victor, and why was he compelled to sign a wall? Don’t we all want to leave our mark, to be remembered? Graffiti. A Deputy Sheriff friend calls it vandalism. I prefer “street art.” An elaborate signature or a colorful mural, it doesn’t matter. It lasts only as long as it takes for the owners to whitewash the wall. I’d like to think I make a statement worth noticing. Life is street art; it’s never permanent. For a little while, Victor was here. What about you?
St. Paul reminds us that we should do everything to the honor of God. Reverence in worship and prayer, a silent, humble posture before a stained glass window, all these can come easily to us. Much less so the familiar tasks that occupy most of our lives where reverence hardly seems appropriate. Yet Paul wants us to consider that as ambassadors for Christ, the world is judging the truth of our message through our behavior. Do others see Christ in me? Would Jesus leave a job hastily and shoddily done? Reverence is a way of life, not just for Sunday.
Turtles are remarkable. They are able to see a broad spectrum of colors, equipped with excellent night vision, feel through their shells, remember complex tasks after nine months, are playful with favorite toys, able to bond with humans. Imagine their unhurried walk through a life that may span 100 years. Quite different from the hare who is lucky to live through the first year. Perhaps that is why Aesop’s tortoise beats the hare. Always seeking new stimuli to stave off boredom, never being satisfied, is hare behavior. Unhurriedly savoring life, never uncritically accepting anything, always open to change – that’s turtling.
Have you ever noticed a small sapling clinging to rocks? Seen later, it’s ten feet tall. We’ll never know what fate placed a seed in such circumstances, but it grew anyway. That same resilience surfaces in people. If we knew the whole stories of our friends, trauma and trial would be all too common. People are far more wounded than we admit, but they are also far stronger than we imagine. As Viktor Frankl noted, finding that strength requires commitment to something bigger than ourselves. For Christians, it is God who provides that strength, and with it, help to overcome.
Once, over coffee, two wealthy young men, lamenting their rising bills, asked me, how much is enough? “It’s never enough,” I replied. “Expenses grow with income. You will spend what you earn.” However, there is a different question: how much do you need? In Tolstoy’s classic, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”, the peasant Pakhom obsessively seeks more land, a quest that leads to his early death. In the end, he is buried on a distant prairie with exactly as much land as he needs- six feet. To have been beloved, even though poor, is a far greater success.
Nearby stands an old garage, walls cracked and leaning, windowpanes broken or missing, white paint bright in the morning sun. How many cars has it sheltered? I believe that places, like people, are bathed in memories, but places can only stand as silent witnesses. Not so those who once lived in that house beside the cracked driveway. I don’t know them, but I do know others. The aged often have stories they long to share. Most of us could spend more time listening to them. They are our parents, grandparents, and neighbors. Someday, we might regret not knowing them better.
I would have avoided lots of problems had I remembered my father’s saying: “The right tool for the right job.” A quick glance at the hardware aisle confirms that even a screw is not simply a screw. Try getting a machine screw to hold in drywall. What is true for screws is true for life, but how often do we falter because we aren’t prepared? Paul reminds us that all Scripture is inspired by God and provides the necessary tools and instructions for a useful life. My father also taught me: “Reading the manual first keeps you out of trouble.”
Most of us learned in grade school that we need others. Solitude is fine for meditation, but we are social animals who take human contact for granted. Only when circumstances force separation do we realize how interdependent we are. Isolation affects each of us differently, but in such situations, we can all benefit from the sound of another voice, one that carries an unspoken “I am here with you.” That’s something we didn’t learn in grade school. The art of truly connecting with others takes some of us a lifetime to learn. Until then we’re just playing musical chairs alone.
Travel is broadening but impractical for many. Absent tickets and luggage, books can immerse us in a broad experience of time, place, and people. Cities and cultures spanning millennia lie before us. In Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo sings a song, “The Road goes ever on and on/ Down from the door where it began.” Journeys are often more about self-discovery than geography, and along the way, we may learn where we came from, why the world works the way it does, and why we believe what we do. Even faith requires knowledge. The road goes ever on …
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