How do you mark time?
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”How do you mark time?
I am 80 years old today. I’ve given myself 35 minutes to write and post this. I bought myself flowers for the apartment and will shortly meet Sister Michelle at Jaks and have a ribeye steak. My doctor is horrified.
Turning 80 somehow seems significant to me. I don’t know why that is. At least not yet. It got me thinking about marking time. And about why I end these postings with “This abides.”
I think about becoming 18 years old, and then 21, and then 50 and now 80. Each with his own rather mundane importance. So I thought a bit more about what were the markers overtime. I’m going to share a few. Just a few. Yes I know this is rather self-indulgent. Please forgive me. But maybe it will help you do a bit of reflection about turning points, moments of insight, times when you think the Holy Spirit nudged you. So here we go.
Getting myself into a fistfight when I was 16. The whole thing was ridiculous. Especially when I suggested that we go do the fighting inside the track team’s locker room. Which was all concrete and metal. I came away rather badly bruised. My nose is still slightly bent. But I did learn how stupid I could be. I also learned I had the ability for some perseverance and courage.
In 1962 was the realization that I probably would get to live a full life because six Marines of Platoon 71 died in a training accident in 1956. It may have something to do with why I have such a deep appreciation of the spiritual wisdom of Charles Williams about Co-inherence and Substitution. He believed in the power of the past to shape and influence the present, and in the power of the present to influence and redeem the past. Some form of enactment of our prayer for the departed “grant them continual growth in thy love and service.” The drama of redemption might be worked out over generations.
When I was 27 I went to my first T-Group. I was living in an urban commune with a group of Episcopal seminarians and priests. Mike had gone and urged us all to go. On the third day, Nona, our trainer - old enough to be my grandmother – had enough of my crap and engaged me in a wrestling match where in about two minutes she pinned me to the ground. Humiliation and humility do seem to be related. In the coming years, I ended up being rather skilled as a trainer. But I never did challenge anyone else to wrestle.
I ....have the impression that God knows the importance of humility for man. He knows our weakness, our pride, and. ..He purposely sets in our path each day four or five humiliations, and in the course of our life, four or five great humiliations. If we do not comprehend them, if we do not accept them, it is a serious matter. But if we accept them, then we learn the generosity of God. Helder Camara (From the Rule of the Order of the Ascension)
Okay, so one last marking. When I was 65 I developed stage four esophagal cancer. By that time, I was deeply engaged with Benedictine spirituality and the spirituality of Julian of Norwich. Keeping death before me in meditation and the sense of how all would be well, even in the worst of times, allowed me to make myself at home in my illness. And then there were all the friends — Michelle, Miriam, Bryan, Scott, Lowell, Susan, my brother Tom and many others. “We are created to be God's friends. God made us for that. Christ lived and died as one of us, and went into heaven to take our humanity into the very life of God, that we might become God’s friends.” Emmett Jarrett, January 30, 1988.
I’ll wrap this up by telling you where “this abides” comes from. It may help you to understand that part of my formation was hearing John [i], Robert, and Teddy quote poetry on moments of national crisis. Sometimes from Tennyson
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth in heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
made weak by time and fate, but strong, in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
This abides,
Brother Robert, OA
The Feast of Tabitha (Dorcas) of Joppa
[i] From his address at Amhurst College, October 26, 1963
“When power leads man toward arrogance,
poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the areas of man’s concerns,
Poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.
When power corrupts,
Poetry cleanses
For art establishes the basic human truths
Which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.”
John F. Kennedy