This painting used to hang over our couch, a fitting piece for a couple of philosophers to display. It when was there many years ago when our oldest daughter was 3 years old. She looked up on it and asked, “Daddy, is your beard like that?” I guessed that she was noting the difference between my trim reddish brown beard and the old philosopher’s shaggy white beard, so I said, “Maybe someday when I’m old I’ll have a beard like that.” Susan replied, “Daddy, don’t get old!”
Well, here I am nearly three decades later, and though my beard is still fairly trim, it’s just as white as the one in the painting. As the T. S. Eliot poem says, “I grow old, I grow old.”
From my perspective now, I would say I am “only” 61, but that is old enough that I think I can catch a glimpse of the end of my life now and then. Both my wife and I have buried our parents and before that went through the messy business of working with our siblings to clean out their homes and help both our mothers find “retirement” accommodations. Now when I look at all the boxes in our garage I occasionally joke that it will be up to our daughters to clean it all out someday. The end, as they say, is in sight, at least a little bit.
That end in sight can make me a little afraid sometimes. There’s much I had hoped to do that hasn’t happened, and at least a few things I’d still like to do someday, like visit Greece again or see some grandchildren. Occasionally I worry that time is running out.
This coming Sunday, Easter, addresses that fear and worry. In Matthew 28:1-10, the women who come to Jesus’ tomb are told, not once but twice, “Do not be afraid.” They had thought they had come for the end of things, to prepare Jesus’ body for its final rest. Surely they must have feared the future without Him, without the direction He had given them. But suddenly they find that He is not there, but risen, and what had appeared to be the end was actually the beginning. And it all meant they did not have to be afraid.
you mentioned your mother Steve–a wonderful woman i am glad i had as a friend. i was disturbed this week by the explosion of the largest conventional bomb ever used in warfare. it was called MOAB an acronym where “M” stands for massive and “B” for blast. it was gleefully called by our president and his generals “mother of all bombs.” MOAB. the bomb was used on maundy thursday during this time of holy week, a time we remember the great art and music of old christendom on the theme of stabbat mater.
i would rather remember mary at the cross, or your mother Steve when i think of the word “mother” not an obscenely powerful bomb.