Well, my birthday comes to a close, and I begin now another year. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you, my friends: some far, some near; most greeting me in English, some in other languages; some I have known since childhood, some whom I have never met except on Facebook posts. Well over 200 of you have wished me well, and I value every single one of you. You bless my life in ways I cannot describe. I baptized a few of you, blessed the marriages of some of you, buried some of your beloved dead, heard your confessions, anointed you with the oil of gladness and healing, fed you Holy Bread and Wine. Some of you I have played with, joked with, rocked to sleep, waked up with. Some of you I know only from phone conversations we have had, others of you have held me when I have cried or been terrified. I have gossiped with some of you, lied to a few of you, loved a great many of you, appreciated all of you. In some ways, today has been like any other, perhaps less productive than most. I have counseled, prayed, visited a sick friend, had a few telephone conversations, emailed, doctored a Sunday bulletin, and consumed a fabulous meal with the man I love the most, Joseph, the center of my life and its chief joy. I spent a little time talking to him as we walked home from the French brasserie where we dined tonight on veal and bouillabaisse, commenting that I had thought some about mortality today. I have made it to age 69 without so much as a broken bone, and no disease that I know of hampering my ability to move about and do most of the things Id like to. I take none of that for granted, realizing that only a molecule would have to move one way or the other for me to become an idiot overnight, or to pin me to a hospital bed or land me in a cell or a grave for good. Some day it will happen, if I am average, and maybe even if I am lucky. I have degrees in theology and over forty years experience guiding people through nights and storms, and yet I do not know the Unknowable who cannot be known. But I intuit. I feel the benevolent Hand of the force behind all things guiding my steps aright, as surely as honking geese overflying my neighborhood somehow know in their beings where to fly and how to follow the ones who will lead them from zone to zone. And while with every passing year the index of what I know for sure grows shorter, yet at the center I trust the more that wherever the road leads, I will travel in good company. If the angels that might greet me in the End (which is the Beginning) are halfway as good as you, dear friends, then I will be quite fine. And what, after all, is living if not to learn how to live? When I was a little boy, I detested getting dirty, couldnt stand rough play, admired sweet flowers and lovely music, pretty things and nice stories. I had no taste for darkness, or horror, or destructiveness. I have been learning, little by little, to delve deeper into the shadows of my being to find the demons that lurk there, giving me great power in some ways, but misshaping my life in other ways. Ironically, most of those demons are respectable, well spoken, even imperially arrayed, having doctorate and elegance. Others of them serve to block the light. Some, like incessantly barking dogs, I have had to water and feed and turn loose to run and play in the muck and mud from time to time. Some I have simply had to notice. Others I have struggled to embrace. One cannot cast out ones demons without expelling ones angels too. Ironically, where we hurt the deepest is sometimes where the salve of our salvation lies. So it is with me. It is all about learning how to live. That is why birthdays are a blessing, and why the years that roll by may take us right back to the places where we have always been but never quite recognized as home.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 03:22:24 +0000
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