31 December 2003
Time continues its inexorable march forward. We each grow older, another day closer to death. Time continues and we are afforded a moment to take stock of our lives and consider the choices that we have made and the legacy that we will leave behind as we, too, fade into the collective memory of our children. I am acutely aware of the artifice of this whole endeavor: indeed it is nothing but the caprice of consensus that has declared that 1 January 2004 begins a New Year. Still, the consensus is powerful insofar as it represents a perception of newness, a perception of a time to take stock and look forward in hope and back with – hopefully – an honest eye and not too much nostalgia.
Over twenty years ago, I stood in the common room at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and overheard a conversation between a professor and an older student. The professor asked “How many summers” my friend had seen. He responded forty-five. At the time that seemed to be such a long time. I’ve now seen that many plus one; it is not that long at all, more a heart-beat than an eternity. Time passes. So shall we.
Yet it is not with a sense of melancholy that I write, though those that know me also are aware of the dark and shadowy outline that embraces my aura. Time passes and we change while remaining quite the same as we ever were. There are things that are part of my essential being. I still wake in wonder of this life. I still don’t understand. I still secretly yearn for the approval of my father, while distancing myself from all that he valued. Maybe this is part of being a man in mid-life. I never believed that the mid-life crisis had to do with sports cars and younger women (the latter being a favorite passion of mine!) as much as a realization that one’s father sets the tone for one’s life.
My father and I have “enjoyed” a strange relationship, I suppose. Neither one of us quite knows what to do with the other: we are more cordial than warm. Neither one will risk a step forward to embrace the other because, I believe, to do so both would have to embrace ourselves. We are cut from the same cloth in many ways: stubborn, opinionated, head-strong, passionate, self-doubting, and – dare I say? – wary of the other. Perhaps we just have become comfortable with our détente?
My father is a man of action, a doer more than a dreamer. He is a healer; and a damn good one, at that. There is much in him that I admire. He is kind, generous, loving. He has garnered the respect and admiration of his fellows. He can also be petty and mean-spirited (traits that when I look in an honest mirror held by a steady hand I see in myself). His passion – medicine – was always his first love. I suppose that this was part of the reason that I refused to be a healer; a sense of puerile jealously at that which vitalized the man and created a distance between us. More than anything – like most sons I suppose – I craved words of approval from this man whose disapproving glance could devastate me. But despite that I regard him as a man among men, one of the old gods, one for whom respect and perhaps begrudged admiration is due.
I am a dreamer. Happy in my non-conformity and disregard for material wealth. Also a man of passion, I have loved music, the arts, and – more than anything else – words. All of my choices revolved around the power of spoken language and the urge to perform words in front of an audience. I became a preacher to that end, having been seduced by the incarnation of the Word. The Word became my means to sculpt the souls of those who would listen. Their power to inculcate a sense of wonder and possibility remains a potent drug for me. I still am driven by the beauty of the Word and am enraptured by its power to create perceptions that dance in harmony with the ultimate reality, with the ideal realm of being.
And so it is that I stand at the dawn of yet another year, the man of action and the dreamer must somehow find peace with one another; actions without dreams are drudgery and dreams without action are delusions. Perhaps the words of Wordsworth are apt for consideration on this dawn of yet another year:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So it was when my life began;
So it is now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old;
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
I smile as I write these words and can hear an old argument, with perhaps a bit of nostalgia and affection: “What does it mean?” the doer demands, the dreamer responds, “Just as it says…”
And so I sit at my father’s desk – a gift from his father – soon to be a gift to my daughter, wearing his ring – again a gift from his father, soon to be one to my daughter – and am aware that time passes and all that really matters is that we love each other, even if we don’t understand each other or share each other’s values.
Another year has come, yet another summer on my back. The time is fleeting and only appears to quicken as I realize that each day represents less and less of my total span of life and still remains the totality of my hope. I don’t know what dreams may come in this year, but still I dare to dream…
Ah, but I am only a fool...
