“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East -- especially in India -- I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving -- it is not in the result of loving. ”
― Mother Teresa
Looking through the pictures of summer, I see a person I do not recognize. It is true. I have always heard it said that in your mind you believe you are younger than your body says. It is a sad state of affairs when you are walking into a ball game and an overweight, bald headed, middle-aged man is trying to flirt with you. The only thought that might be grimmer is that he might even be younger than me. The pictures do not lie. I am not as young as I used to be. It is a stark reality that I am slowly approaching mid-life.
Some of my counter parts pay to have time erased from their deteriorating bodies; face lifts, body reductions, enhancements. It becomes more difficult to lose a pound, energy wanes and injuries happen as we try to overcompensate and work out more. However short-lived the solutions may be, it only postpones the inevitable. Time is truly not our friend! Even more difficult to watch is our aging parents, our dying grandparents and friends who are facing serious physical ailments and sicknesses. This was all promised from the very beginning; we would be born, our days would be numbered and we would return as dust. All of this is the result from Adam and Eve's choice to rebel against God's only rule.
I think Mother Teresa has a point. Our daily life and routines are so rushed and time passes by so quickly, that we forget to sit under the tree, in the park, on the back porch, just chatting; with our parents, our spouses, and our children who are growing up so quickly right before our very eyes. We go from 20 somethings who will conquer the world, to parents who are waving our goodbyes and eagerly waiting for their return on holidays.
Change is inevitable! We can't stop our children from leaving the nest, or from our bodies aging. It is all going to happen! Our response to the changes in life are within our control. Acceptance of change is hard! I find myself reflecting on the past more and more. I am thankful for past relationships, loved ones lost, mistakes made. They all make up the tapestry of my life. I am also thankful for the present and that there is still more time to "be content just being" in the moment. This summer I have had time just being present. It is hard for our whole family not being on the fast lane of life.
Instead of being afraid of what is to come, or depressed about what is behind, I keep asking the question about what I can do to show the love of Jesus to others that I can touch presently and in the days ahead. If I didn't have the secure knowledge that Christ loves me regardless of how I look or how I am going to change, I'm not quite sure where I would be!
God has made everything beautiful in His time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil- this is a gift from God! I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere Him! Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account. Ecclesiastes 3:11-15
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