Approaching Our Finish Line, What Awaits Us? Just the Beauty of God!
Recently I was inspired by these words of the noted blind writer Helen Keller, whose life was the inspiration for the play and movie, The Miracle Worker: “I know that life is given to us so that we may grow in love. And I believe that God is in me.” Continuing she wrote, “… the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower, the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.”
Why are these words speaking to me now? Lately I have enjoyed chatting with a few of my high school peers. In our conversations, we decided it certainly was glorious to be young. However, we also agreed that there is glory in maturity, despite its losses, aches, and diminishments.
There comes a time when we are immersed in the years of our retirement. This period of our lives is quieter and slower than the unfurling of our youth. Many of the members of our families that have shared a large part of our lives are gone, but their words of wisdom live in our memories.
They gave us, in their own unique way, the pieces which fashioned who we are, sometimes knowingly, and sometimes not. They loved us, that’s for certain, and their love molded us. Many them completed their own journey in this life and left us reminiscences which occasionally stir in our hearts for us to embrace or discard.
As our maturing group examined our own retirements, we agreed that retirement is a quieter process than the energy of youth or the display of midlife competency. Some of my peers see these later years as a time of releasing, instead of acquiring, as growing lighter rather than gathering seriousness.
“Nothing is made in vain,” voices Sirach from the Scriptures. Each in its turn is good. While embracing the splendor of youth is easy, my friends and I decided we must also make friends with the years of our diminishment. We do this through a graceful and gracious surrender and, while it is happening, still let ourselves be heard.
We in this world, either youth or retiree, as a pilgrim people are on our way home. To inspire us, Jesus in his Transfiguration shows us a vision of the shore we are heading. Within this image, we see the beauty of God momentarily flashed out in the person of Jesus. If life and death are to have meaning for us, we embrace the words of St. Paul: “I consider that what we suffer at the present time cannot be compared all with the glory that awaits us.” (Romans 8:18)
Painting: Helen Keller, artist Greg Jones
