Time Keeps on Tickin'

An old English proverb states: "Time is a file that wears and makes no noise." I don't want to have a lot of sentimental nonsense for this entry, but time has been wearing on me a lot lately. It's as if the world is spinning faster and faster and I'm simply caught up in the whirlwind. I wake up in the morning and before I'm done yawning and stretching, night has come and I am back into bed. Where does it go? Why is it so fast? Why does it hurt?

On Monday night, a few of the fellows and I met up at the softball diamond for a double header of slow pitch softball. Truly, slow-pitch softball is one of the great pleasures of life not only because it is in the company of fine men, but it requires very little expectations of greatness. Anybody, really - anybody, can play slow-pitch softball. I look out across the diamond and see young men, old men, in-shape men, men that look like they've eaten a basketball, some men can barely walk and yet they are placed at first base or behind home plate to take up space. Truly, softball is the great equalizer of all sports. Almost like golf or bowling - I'm not saying those are sports mind you (they're games, but I'll not have any fights over semantics on this blog, George and Rich.)

I watch the young men with envy. Not that I am old, by any means, but those young men can show up, not stretch, not throw and be perfectly fine with exerting the greatest amount and effort and have no sore, aching muscles the next day. I, on the other hand, have learned the necessary beauty of stretching - it's annoyances: I want to just show up and, frankly, stretching is painful. I feel like an old rubber band that has been sitting in my desk drawer, kind of dry and crumbly and when you start to stretch it you can see the cracks forming. I can't sprint like I used to, or I can, but it's the stopping that's the problem. Like a semi-tractor engaging enough momentum to get up hill, changing gears - I can do that, but to slow down and stop again, you might as well have a pull off ramp on the side of a mountain.

On Tuesday morning, just like every Tuesday morning after softball, every bone in my body crackles. I actually wake Christine up with my creaking. Like sharp retorts, the joints popping sound like mini firecrackers off the wooden floors of the room. There is pain in my muscles, my back, my neck, my arms - sheesh, I sound like I'm 80 years old. Pretty soon I'll be taking Geritol. I remember in my somewhat youthful years playing baseball everyday of the week and be ready to bale hay for eight hours the next morning. Yes, I am practicing for my geriatric years.

If only time would slow down for a while. I'd like to just rest a while at this age. The girls are at a perfect time in their life: they are young enough to still need us, young enough to still think I'm cool, young enough to hug and cuddle and read to, but independent enough to play on their own every once in a while. If only time would slow down. But, this ever moving ball continues rolling. Now that I'm getting older, time seems to go faster and I fill my time with different things. God, family, friends, work. In times of crisis, those are my priorities and in that order. Josephine, a few months ago, somehow caught her foot in her bicycle between the wheel and the kickstand. Impossibly, Christine could not extricate her foot. Christine tried calling me, I would have been there in a moment. If there is a family crisis, family comes first. Family should always come first, right?

But what happens in times of relative serenity? The priorities get rearranged backwards. Christine might want me to come and eat at home one night during the week but for some reason, my job calls me - I can't let this person down; I can't say 'no' to that person. Suddenly, I, without realizing it, have rearranged my priorities and family comes last on the totem pole of responsibilities. And God - where does God fit in? I can always do my devotions later - people need me. Prayer? Come on, meetings take precedence. Someone will pray at the meeting. That's the same thing, right?

Nah, I'm delusional. God doesn't require just a piece of my heart just as Christine only wants a little section of my life. Christine and I, when we were married, had our hearts sown together by God. And in the midst of everything in my life, God simply wants to be part of it; God wants to help show us the path in the midst of the mountains. If time allows, that is.

I met with a couple just recently who have been married almost twenty-five years. The husband is quite ill; the wife has conquered cancer lately. Because they are later in life, there is always the fear that these might be the last moments. And as they look back over life together, they have chosen to see the blessings of life together and more than once one of them has said, "I wish we could do that time again." I sometimes think that also. In heaven, do we get to look back at the fantastic moments of our lives almost as if we were watching home movies? Will we get to experience the ultimate of joys like here on earth?

I don't know what heaven will be like, to be honest with you, but what I do know is that every time I say 'I love you' to one of my family members it is an opportunity when time ceases. It is at that point when time touches eternity.

Love is the great bridge between heaven and earth.

Henry Van Dyke wrote:
"Time is - too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
But for those who love, time is not."

It's time to love. It's time for the opportunity to remember that life is not a solitary existence but a connection of moments to love other people.

I guess it's time, huh?