What Is Our Life?

Lately, I have felt tired: harried by the demands of this life, good and bad.  In the words of Bilbo Baggins, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring)  I’m not getting any younger and my body seems to be making this argument daily, loud and clear.  I’m really OK with it.  If I learned anything from loosing my eldest son, it’s that we weren’t made for this life.  As James puts it,

“…you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14, ESV)

So, what is our life? 

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

(Mary Oliver, 1990)

If we’re only here for a short time, what do we make of this “one wild and precious life?” How might we cultivate and treasure it, and commit it to the glory of God?

This question has haunted my thoughts the past few years.  I want to think deeply on things, to notice a grasshopper, to be awed by a sunset, to have the capacity to read a good book.  I realized that if this is the kind of person I want to become, I would have to make some changes.  I noticed some unhealthy habits that I’ve developed over time that have contributed to my soul feeling cluttered and my mind consumed with noise.  Upon waking, I would grab my phone and begin the eternal scroll that I would continue off and on throughout the day.  At night, I would finish the day by watching some shows or movies for a few hours, before nodding off.  So, this Lenten season, I decided to take a break from all of it.  I took social media off my phone and stopped the nightly movies.  I’ve picked up reading again.  The fog has begun to lift from my mind, and I’ve felt more “human” than I have in awhile.  It’s not always easy as some thoughts that come are heavy and enter in, laden with grief.  But this is the price of love.  I have also noticed a greater capacity for devotion and prayer, as the phone is not constantly calling my name.  I feel a closeness with my Savior and Friend that I haven’t felt in awhile.

We live in a crazy world!  There are so many things clamoring for our attention, wanting our affection.  We can easily become dependent on those things, making us deaf to the small moments; 

the path of a raindrop as it makes its way down our window pane,

the way of a bird as it soars across the sky,

or even the voice of one we hold dear as they speak our name.

Ultimately, it can drown out the one voice we need to hear… 

the Truth,

that cuts through the darkness of our lives.

It can cause our memories to dim of

the One

who walks with us through this land of shadows. 

It’s good to take a breath and allow ourselves the space to see what is truly important.  It is good to clear the fog away and gaze again on the One who made us, saved us, sustains us, and desires relationship with us.  Taking a step back from those things that desperately vied for my attention, has been such a life-giving decision. As I take the next step into this crazy life, I pray it will continue to shape me as I move forward, unsteadily at times, definitely not perfectly.

May God cause us to become the people He wants us to be, as we journey forward into the gift of this one “wild and precious life.”