Birthdays, time and ageless wisdom from 80's movies...

So today is my birthday.  I haven’t posted a blog in four months…quite frankly because, wow time moves quickly at this age and I hadn’t really even noticed.  I have reached that age that my mom likes to joke that she had reached and never moved on from. It was funny a long time ago, then it was cute…and today…well now I have reached that age.  Damn…the yesterdays have moved fast…I still remember the night out with the boys at Fieldhouse on my 21^st , hanging with family in Chicago  on my 25^th and the delicious steak on my 30^th with friends from the Berg in Columbia.  I used to be good at math.  But somewhere between the confines of finite numbers and bleary memories…I am still trying to figure out how I got to 39 so fast. 

Time has literally and figuratively been on my mind a lot for the last year or so….theologically, biologically, emotionally.  Movies, books, blogs and discussions.  Renowned physicist  Morgan Freeman taught me on “Through the Wormhole”, that apparently as you age, time actually moves faster as you age, proportionally of course… so that by time you are in your 80’s…you seem to be ageing twice as fast as when you were 16. Oh, and if you want time to slow a bit more…move to the top of a mountain, or get in a plane or spaceship that goes real fast.  I plan on taking a spaceship to Mt. Everest…just to check that math. 

If you know your Bible, you will remember Jesus telling us to basically not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, that today would be enough for today (Matt 6:34)…easy enough for the Son of God to say huh!? And if you like sci-fi or physics, there are a plethora of explanations in books and movies as to exactly what is going on in time or through time…recently the movie “Interstellar” for example…let that warp your mind in time for a bit.  Equations and overly smart scientists can talk all day (and they will)…yet it doesn’t stop the itching in my head or yearning in my heart to understand…HOW can it truly have moved so fast?

Or is it really moving at all?  Perhaps it is closer to that “eternal” now.  Maybe the back-log of memories just makes us feel like we are moving through time…holding onto the important things too long sometimes…and others not long enough.  Maybe we are just floating in the space between memories? They say that more often than not, dying people, or people who have been brought back to life, these people say to hold onto the important things in life…the people and loved ones around you.  I think that was what Jesus was probably getting at with his thoughts on “today”. 

So today, join me…hold on, to today…to that which burns through your inner being, that which carries your soul from the first light of day at the dawning of your alarm clock, to the last wavering thought upon your pillow at night.  Carpe Diem…”seize the day”…may be too much of a cliché (but you got to love Robin Williams quoting it in Dead Poets Society)…but at my age, clichés are just moments that remind me of things that meant something to so many people, there was just no better way to say it…so who really cares if it is a cliché!?   Seize it!

I think as I stare into the long avenue of the 40’s coming at me…I will choose rather to seize it, bite into it, chew it, breathe it in…live it, and keep going.  I plan on learning French, writing more poetry, reading more books, seeing more of the world with my lovely wife, making new friends and even having deeper and more intense conversations with God.  Who knows, maybe God will finally tell me what this time thing is all about?  But until then, I am and will be…the time I make of the day I live...again, for the 14,235th time…and on…and on.

But you don't have to take my word for it...you can always refer to the ageless, sage-like advice of Ferris...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91lJhEzMaH4

 Cheers!

Between valleys and mountains

Blogging.  The next technological leap for me.  I remember my first CD player in 1991 on which I played my first CD, U2’s “The Joshua Tree”…not need to recognize its brilliance, I am sure you already know.  I remember making fun of people with cellphones in college and at work in the bars for about 10 years before I got one in 2002, only because my girlfriend at the time made me, of course.  I remember getting my first DVD player and first personal computer…in 2004, yes you read that right.  I am some sort of a pseudo-ludite…always a few years behind apparently.  When I got that first computer in 2004, I took it home to put my old college floppy discs in it, to see some of my old college papers…old as in 6 years earlier.  There was no disc drive.  Apparently in 6 years, the world went from discs to jump drives, who knew? I also used to think blogging was silly as well.  Did I mention I am a huge bandwagoner!?

SO here I am.  I will just simply say that life is too short not to share thoughts, theories and insights with others…who knows, one person may find a helpful suggestion, a common thread of thought, a whisper of God in the universe…who knows…maybe we will even have a healthy debate.  Maybe you will read one of my poems, and decide you want to publish a book of them…no seriously, that would be grand of you!  Of course, there is also the cathartic aspect for the writer isn’t there?  There seems to be something deep, elusive and hopeful in putting words into the world…and waiting to see what happens, both as you type them, and as they are received.  Though generally, my emanations in this blog will and do come from a bent soul, it is more often than not, a peaceful soul.  It rests in God most of the time, and so finds the overwhelming weight of the world to be yoked to God’s purpose, though I get my selfish hands on it as well from time to time and mess things up good and proper.  Ah, trial and error, learning from my mistakes, etc…my wife loves this part the best!

We are a social species, and as an ex-bartender and current priest…I have been called into the center of some of our societies’ biggest communal arenas…bars and churches.  Maybe one thing I heard or saw or learned in those buildings may be worth this blog…maybe my mind will feel at ease putting the poetry of my convictions and the hope of my bent soul into some semblance of cohesiveness.  Maybe not.  At least the picture on the blog page, of the mountain in Switzerland above the valley near Labri’ where I lived for four months, is wonderful and glorious, right!?  I grew up in the Ohio River Valley (don’t drink the water!)…and yet I have always felt drawn to the mountains…Rockies, Smokies, Alps and Himalayas.  And so I still find myself always between the valleys and the mountains…walking, searching, asking and hoping.  And just maybe that is what this blog will be about…and maybe I will see you along the way, and we can talk.  And maybe, God will join in.