Twenty-five years ago, as soon as I returned home from anywhere, I touched play back to retrieve my telephone messages. Now, I can’t leave home without a phone. I also require Internet access to keep in touch so I was frustrated yesterday when a loose connection made the web unavailable. Twenty first century is punctuated by frustrations that would have left my grandmother speechless in the context of her life. A mother of seventeen children, who only saw nine to adulthood, she was stressed when it rained on lines of laundry, when the coals were too damp to cook or she ran out of kerosene for her lamp. So when I fret over a broken nail or inadequate web access, I need to remind myself to avoid stressing over trivia. Nevertheless, I often find myself swept along by the modern tendency to become anxious about the non-essentials In contrast, as one gets older, even legitimate concerns like work, reputation, status are only important through the lens of our end times. What is really important when work is over, when I may not even know who I am? Certainly, It won’t be how I look or what people think. I hope it will about who loves me.
Being with my mom is reading a testament to love and if the closing years of my life could be spent as cherished, then my life would be a resounding success. Success to me is what you have left that cannot be taken away by the ravages of time, place or people. So, I want to work hard to avoid the small stuff that saps my energy, robs me of joy and distract from my purpose.
Authenticity always comes at a price but Jesus gave himself freely to Simon as well as to Judas. At a time, when it is so easy to be superficial, I can only learn to be authentic by trial and error. Sometimes, I think it is more by error than anything else. Despite this, it is a start, the journey has begun and I am so very thankful to God for that.