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| In times like these, I am tempted towards despair. How quickly my youth has gone! Or I can be tempted towards envy of those whose youth and vitality are in their prime. Their exuberance runs circles around my increasingly feeble efforts. |
I lost my glasses and my keys all in one afternoon. Having stacked back to back appointments, I suppose it was bound to happen. Racing around as I was that day increased the likelihood of error. Other than my keys, I had left everything else in my car—including, I thought—my glasses. After a three hour search of the areas most likely to have my keys, I returned to my car and couldn’t find my glasses either. Desperate calls to the places I had been yielded no results. My glasses and my keys were lost.
The older I get, the more these episodes of forgetfulness seem to increase. Many of my friends who are ever-so-slightly older than me tell me this is the way it is and that I’d better get used to it (or figure out a way to padlock my keys and glasses to me)! The subtle slipping of memory and recall, the fading energy, and the inability to find culturally relevant connections with those younger than me all serve to show me—as the mirror reveals the increasing lines on my face and the graying of my hair—that I am no longer a young woman.
In times like these, I am tempted towards despair. How quickly my youth has gone! Or I can be tempted towards envy of those whose youth and vitality are in their prime. Their exuberance runs circles around my increasingly feeble efforts. In my efforts to keep up, I am drawn to fads and notions for reclaiming youthful energy. Lotions and potions, diets and exercise regimes which promise the fountain of youth lead only to an empty checking account and a bankrupt soul. None of these strategies can erase mid-life regrets or restlessness. Rather than animating creative ideas about living in my life
now, I allow it to be tethered to worldly dreams of more, or better, or younger or simply other.
Moses was not a young man when he penned Psalm 90. Yet this psalm was his prayer to the everlasting God as he contemplated his own transient days on earth.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world. Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You turn human beings back into dust, and you say, ‘Return, O children of the earth.’ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by.”
We are not told what prompted this song of Moses. Perhaps it was written after an endless day of complaint from wilderness-weary Israelites. Perhaps it was written with regret after his violent outburst against the rock would bar him from entry into the Promised Land. Perhaps, it was simply his own lament as he saw his body age and his youth as a distant memory. Whatever event prompted its writing, it is a song sung in a minor key, with great regret.
Our days have declined in your fury; we have finished our years with a sigh.
Whether prompted by deep regret, disillusionment, or a simple admitting of reality, Moses reflects on the brevity of life. He compares it to the grass “which sprouts anew. In the morning, it flourishes; toward evening it fades, and withers away.” Before we know it, our lives are past; we finish our years with sighing. In light of human transience, Moses makes a request: “So, teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom….that we may sing for joy and be glad all of our days….and confirm the work of our hands.”
(1) He doesn’t ask for a longer life, or a youthful potion. Instead, he asks the eternal God to remind finite human beings of their limited lifespans in order that wisdom might reign and gratitude would mark even the briefest of stays on this earth.
It was the inevitability of death that motivated this prayer for wisdom. This was a wisdom that didn’t try to hide from aging but rather sought to keep finitude ever before it. Indeed the cry for God to “confirm the work of our hands” demonstrates that numbering life’s days can lead to meaningful engagement in the world and in human work—and this was the mark of wisdom. Perhaps it is a wisdom that can only come from age.
Sadly, the reminders of our own mortality can tempt many towards distraction. Yet it can also lead to wise engagement. In his own brief life, Jesus faced his own death with intention and purpose. “I am the Good Shepherd…and I lay down my life for the sheep… No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative.”
(2) The way of wisdom demonstrated in the life of Jesus gives flesh to the ancient psalmist’s exhortation. As he numbered his days, he calls those who would follow to engage mortality as a catalyst for purposeful living.
While following Jesus insists on the laying down of life in his service, it can be done in the hope that abundant life is truly possible even as one ages and death becomes a more poignant reality. For the one who laid his life down is the one who was raised. He is the
everlasting God and a dwelling place for all generations. “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in me will live even though he dies.”
Margaret Manning Shull
Copyright Rzim.org
November 17, 2015
credits:
Image 1: theconversation.com
Image 2: sciencenordic.com
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