Love is Pure Gold, and Time a Thief

 Where has the time gone?  On this blog, at least, the year 2020 fell into a hole and never emerged from it.  And just as well, yes?

Now, though, it is a new year, with hopeful news about crawling out of the hole carved by the COVID-10 Pandemic.  For yours truly, I now have internalized shot 1 of 2 (Pfizer), and am one shot and another 2 weeks away from immunity, whatever that turns out to be.  There is a profound sense of freedom looming just weeks away.

What's more, my wife and I have both selected retirement dates and have informed our employers of the same.  A similarly delightful sense of looming freedom has resulted from that!  Not all the final boxes are yet checked, but we trust that God is in the details, benevolently lining circumstances up to provide a smooth transition.

New life stages are on the way!

As my father-in-law has often said, there are 3 stages to old age:

• the Go-Go 60s
• the Slow-Go 70s
• the No-Go 80s

and we are smack in the middle of Stage 1, ready to Go! Go! Go!  Although as life expectancy lengthens, I think those convenient decade spans may be shifting out about 5 years (or at least I hope so!), such that we can go-go until 75 and slow-go until 85, etc.

Which puts me in mind of a lyric from a fine song by Kurt Weill, Speak Low, which says in part:

I feel wherever I go that tomorrow is near,

Tomorrow is here and always too soon.

Time is so old and love so brief;

Love is pure gold and time a thief.

(I like the Boz Skaggs version, personally)

Time IS a thief.  It steals your looks, your health, your vitality, your mentality, your speed, your resources, your relationships (eventually) ...

and yet, it can give as well as take.  The last 12 months have been a gift of more time at home, and a deepening of relationship.  God bless quarantine!  I have not had to commute up north for almost a year now, and may never have to again.  And if this unexpected time together has deepened and lengthened love on the way toward the threshold of our golden years, then that old thief, Time, has had a change of heart, giving back some of what it has taken.

 

Re-embracing an Old (and Restorative) Habit

Since the late 1990s, I have engaged in the practice of taking an annual spiritual retreat of 2-4 days, usually in Fall around my birthday.  At some remote and private spot, often at a Franciscan or Benedictine center, I will hole up for a few days with some devotional materials and other reading material, engaging in reflection upon the past year and thinking ahead to the upcoming one.  The purpose has always been to disconnect with what pushes me along from day to day, week to week and month to month, and see things from another perspective - hopefully God's.

Henri Nouwen said: "Solitude is the furnace of transformation.  Without solitude, we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self."  The false self is the persona we inhabit in our busyness, the one who interacts with others in haste under the pressure of deadlines and expectations.  There is another self, an authentic self, buried underneath all that haste and pressure, who will not come out unless these is calm and safety.

Jesus, too called his disciples to " 'Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile.'  For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat."  (Mark 6:31)  Doesn't that sound like the pace of life we face routinely?  There's hardly even time for lunch, much less get decent rest.

Unfortunately, since the disruption of September 2017 (about which the interested reader can learn in previous blog posts), I have not felt the freedom to take the necessary time away to disconnect and reflect - until now.  That, I think, is testimony to how much better life has become since my last post!  The last time I blogged was 6 months after initially changing jobs and having a second residence seven hours away from wife and home.  Not long after that post, my employer agreed to let me work one week per month from our home in Iowa, such that now I spend only 70% of my time each month up north in what we call our pied-à-terre.  That, plus another 14 months on the job, and opportunities for ministry in both locations, has given us more confidence that we can sustain this arrangement until we finally light fire to our mortgage, roughly 2 1/2 years from now (God willing).

So now, more well adjusted, better acclimated and slightly less harried, here I am at a Fransiscan retreat center even further north into the lake country of  Northern Wisconsin (which is roughly anything north of US Hwy 8).  Still accompanied by some devotional materials and other items to read, I've had a chance to walk a bit through the rainy forests surrounding Trout Lake, and revel in the brilliance of Autumn in the North Woods. (photo evidence below.)

As I walked and marveled at this literal cathedral in the pines, I found my arms raised in praise to the One who fashioned the earth for His and our pleasure, and in Whose presence are pleasures forevermore.

From the soft yellow-green of the poplars & birches

To the russets and browns of the oaks and ferns

And the maples' spikes of orange, yellow, red

Set against the black trunks and deep piney green,

This forest is like the bush of Moses:

Aflame but not consumed!

And my heart magnifies the Name of the Lord,

Who makes every ground sacred ground by His presence.

The Confederacy of the Humbled

Well, it's been awhile, has it not, dear reader?  Nearly 6 months, if memory serves.  You may rightly ask "Have you been too busy to write?"  And I would say to you... yes, and no.  I certainly have had time to post something, but have honestly been trying to absorb my circumstances here - and that has kept me mentally and emotionally busy, such that what there was to say... wasn't clear.

Not that it's that much clearer now, but I am marking a sort of milestone - six months on the job - and as most of you know it's about the time when the learning curve has started to flatten and you have begun to understand things.  Life in the workplace was pretty stressful in those first 6 months, not to mention the personal life part and its stressors.

When I was contemplating taking this role, the head of the organization said "Give it 6 months; you'll know."  So we agreed to review things in 6 months on a weekend away with my wife of 42+ years, the ever-captivating Diane.  It's coming up in a couple days now, and we will examine how the last 6 months have gone. This first 6 months living apart has been both difficult and encouraging.  On this weekend away, we will try to ferret out what has gone well, what needs to change, what is critical, and what we can live with.  I expect that the weekend will result in a proposal for my boss (and his).  May God grant acceptance of whatever we put forward.

One of the things that has characterized my last 6 months has been study and reflection on how God works in my life through circumstances.  I have time to read, and long for fellowship outside the four walls of this 585 S.F. apartment.  So I have wasted less time while here, and have invested time in reading and in group Bible studies which get me up and out, away from the internet and cable.  (Oh, and I don't actually have cable here.  Internet, yes, but I use a digital antenna, and subscribe to Hulu and Netflix via a Roku device.  Much less expensive and a lot more hipster.  :)

In my reading time, I have been enjoying a book that the Missus has recommended from her book club - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.  Delightful!  There are several favorite quotes that I have marked but perhaps the most personal and profound is this one, about something he calls the Confederacy of the Humbled (of which I am a lifetime member, regularly reinforced by circumstance.)

[... ] the Confederacy of the Humbled is a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance. For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condecension with an inward smile.

That, dear reader, is right on the money.  Would that each of us could learn this lesson early and often.  I understand now how valuable humility is and how unreliable human affirmation can be.  There is a verse to an old hymn that I go back to often to remind myself that human approval is fickle; it is God's approval that matters, no one else's.  It goes like this:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art

So as I continue in a less than desirable situation, trying hard to make the best of it, to find the silver lining in it, I will embrace the humbling & look to God for comfort.

12 Days On

... in my new job.  The "drinking from the fire hose" part is past now and I believe I am absorbing things.  My boss has passed a few things my way to own (with careful supervision, of course) by way of a couple of projects to lead and a couple of regular reports to create, and I'm already out of things to do.  I'm at a hard stop while I wait for him to answer questions and provide feedback.  So in an effort to keep me busy while he figures out what to give me next, he is going to sign me up for on-line training for a professional credential.

This is one of the issues with reporting to a high-ranking executive.  He's busy!  As he passes me things to take off his plate, he will become less busy, but to pass me things requires that he take time which he doesn't have to show me what he wants done.  Classic Catch-22 scenario.

In other news, it's much snowier up here.  Daily brushing & scraping of the car windows is required.  Fortunately by mid-February I will be in an apartment with underground parking.  Yay!  But until then I scrape. 

The Hamburger Helper routine is going well.  One batch makes two dinners, alternating with pre-cooked sausages (brats, cheddarwurst) on the off days. Maybe I should branch out into frozen pizza...  Of course there is a side salad, maybe some cottage cheese as well.  All to be able to enjoy eating ice cream right out of the container at night while watching the local news & weather.  Mint chip.

Breakfast is a rotation of 1) gruel (steel cut oats, chia seeds, frozen fruit steeped in almond milk & plain yogurt overnight), 2) grits and a protein shake, and 3) eggs & toast.

Subway is my destination after work, to pick up their daily footlong for lunch the next day.  On the weekends, it's Chunky soups or ham & cheese on multi-grain.  When I get into the new place, I will be able to walk to work and walk home for lunch, so Chunky soups every day!  Woo.

I have to say, thank God for video calling (Google Duo).  I thought I'd hate it as I don't like phone calls very much.  But it's a Godsend, literally.  We couldn't have done this 10 years ago, but with that technology, the 7 hour drive separation is bearable.  I think we actually talk more now than we did when I was at home.  :)

Oh, and I guess I failed to state that since my last post, we did decide to try to finagle keeping the house in Des Moines.  It's an experiment, that's for sure.

And that's the news from up north.

Chapters of Life

For a long time I've been fiddling with a concept of how the various stages of life commonly break down into 12 periods of seven years each.  

Each period corresponds to a particular month of the year, beginning March 1 (when we begin expecting new life to emerge from the dead ground), and ending on February 28 (the end of winter and the shortest, coldest month of the year).  

Those months also cluster into quarters of three months each, which also correspond to a larger phase of life.  A couple of days ago, I assigned verbs to the months and quarters which to me characterize the main activity of those periods.  

Finally today I put together a diagram which portrays those periods of life as books on a bookshelf.  I would imagine that selecting a couple of key stories about your life from each of those periods would produce a pretty good autobiography.  

Hm.  Maybe I'll do that.  After all, by next Autumn I'll be heading into the "concluding" period, and shortly after that comes a period of sharing with others what you've learned in life.  If I can commit to writing the first 9 periods now, then the last quarter should be easy to put a pen to, even for someone who is nearing the end of the journey, about to fill up the bookshelf.  :)

Leaving what you love

As my job search continues, the several options I had been exploring (and some, interviewing for) have started to fall off the radar screen.  Right now I am down to two, both fairly assured that I may get an offer soon.  Neither are in Des Moines.  It's looking more and more like I will have to move.  On one of the jobs, Diane and I are now starting to consider how I might move, but finagle keeping our home where it is, so as to retire in it in 4 years, but still see each other regularly.  On the other job, that would not be possible, so I am wondering if we could get Jimmy to consider also moving there, so he could be near us like he is here.

Earlier this week, I found myself standing at the top of the staircase to the lower level and nearly began to cry.  I had an overwhelming feeling of loss, saying to myself "I don't want to leave here."  For a guy who's moved around as much as I have, it feels strange to have such a strong attachment to a place.  I don't know what to make of it.

Amnesia

poem by William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality

What though the radiance which was once so bright 

Be now for ever taken from my sight, 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; 

We will grieve not, rather find 

Strength in what remains behind; 

In the primal sympathy 

Which having been must ever be; 

In the soothing thoughts that spring 

Out of human suffering; 

In the faith that looks through death, 

In years that bring the philosophic mind.