Teach me to number my days...

A good sermon whomped me upside the head Sunday and my ears are still ringing. Pastor Pat was in good form preaching from the Psalms with additional words from William Sloan Coffin and Martin Luther King, Jr. The three words that were her main point have been waltzing around the dance floor of my soul since Sunday and they are helping me find a new rhythm for my days. Teach me to number my days…
One of the points of grace for me this weekend was my sixty fifth birthday. Farm friends gathered for dessert and laughter. Alison was here with her two boys so I got to do some serious baby holding. Aidan and I had a conversation about rainbows, joy and sorrow and his Grandma Mary. One of our special friends, Perry, in town for a conference, called so we had lunch together after church. Serendipity grace all weekend long kept my feet dancing. Teach me to number my days…
Aunt Peg, my mother’s sister is due at the farm today for a visit. My cousin Eddie called last night to see if I had or could borrow a video camera. He wants to film mama and Aunt Peg as they tell stories about their lives. We are all so very aware of the dance coming to an end for these two sisters, one ninety two and one eighty five. Pastor Pat said Sunday death is not our enemy. Death is our reminder to live with grace and gratitude for we are finite creatures. This week I will be numbering my days and theirs as we remember who and where I come from…who my people are. John Ed Pearce said, “Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.” I will be going home again this week.
The season is changing. Summer is a memory that floats to the surface on an unexpectedly warm autumn day. Crisp, cold morning air shadowed by darkness reminds me that all creation is finite. Life does not last forever. Summer green has given way to bare limbs and the last roses of summer are brown and withered. The dogs drug up a deer carcass in the yard, mostly bone, and I know a hunter or a coyote ended the life of that deer. It is the way of the world. Death lives with life. My days, like the days of the deer, are numbered so I am living with gratitude for the most amazing gift of my life, all sixty five years of it.
In his last sermon in Memphis, Martin Luther King spoke of having seen the Promised Land invoking the memory of Moses seeing the Promised Land but not being allowed to enter. Pastor Pat reminded us that none of us are allowed to enter the Promised Land of endless future. The work begun in the present, like the oak trees we plant now, will grow and continue (or not) in our children and grandchildren’s time. We can see the future, perhaps understand some of it, but it will not be our time or our land. We must live our numbered days with the awareness of our own limits, our own ending. And in this awareness, we can sing with the Psalmist, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
T.S.Eliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” One of the gifts of aging is the discernment, the discovery of our ending and our beginning. If we are paying attention, we can learn the dance steps so our ending days are a graceful, grace filled testament to our Creator’s generosity and love. This week I am waltzing my way towards home…