a magnificient ruin....

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, not really paying attention to much besides waking up gently, when I caught sight of my face. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Like my grandchildren’s faces at Christmas, my face had shape shifted and I hadn’t even noticed. I have JOWLS... those deep lines with a little fat on each side that begin at the corner of your mouth and travel downwards. I stood there making faces at myself trying to make them go away. Perhaps if I smile all the time, or if I lose the extra ten pounds I am carrying around, or use some high powered face cream, they will go away. I haven’t minded crow’s feet or freckles that have metamorphosed into age spots or the wrinkles between my eyebrows, but having jowls is too, too much. I called my mama for sympathy and got none. She has jowls too and more as she reminded me. "Growing old is not for the faint of heart", she says. "Get used to it", she says. "It won’t go away", she says.
Growing old...what a complicated concept. I don’t mind growing old, I really don’t, partly because I feel alive and somewhat young still inside with the added bonus of having been there and done that and bought the tee shirt. Growing old, like growing up, is inevitable if you live. And like growing up, you have some choices you can make. I can choose to take care of my body... or not. I can choose to continue to learn and love and laugh and live... or not. I can make a difference in this world or in the lives of others... or not. I can grow up spiritually as I grow old physically and therein, for me, lies the gift of aging. Jowls might be a reminder to me that it is time to shift my focus from exterior to interior changes. How has my spiritual face changed?
My spiritual face is not as sharp edged as it used to be. In my younger days, my realm of certainty was much larger. I knew a great deal for sure and did not wonder much at all. That has reversed itself. Just as my physical face has softened and slid a little, my spiritual face now reflects more wonder at the Mystery of It All and less absolute assurance in the" my way or the highway approach" to faith. Now I know what I do not know, as well as what I do know and that is a gift that has come with age. I look in the heavens at night and am overcome with awe and fear and the realization that the God who created our universe is as vast and beautiful as the night sky canopy above me. How presumptuous of me to imagine that I could fathom the height and depth and breath of God. And yet...
Just as my face came with my daddy’s freckles and my mother’s blue eyes, my spiritual face bears the imprint of my Creator. Mother God’s loving, nurturing nature marks my inward face with laugh lines of love. Father God’s steadfast presence in times of trouble gave me a solid foundation of spiritual skin and bone on which I might build. The Spirit, showing up at the most unexpected times, left wrinkles that move up on my face with surprise and wonder from grace. My spiritual wrinkles, like my physical wrinkles, have a beauty that comes from experience and practice.
I once said that when I got old I wanted all the wrinkles on my face to run up, not down. Gravity has some control over that as does heredity and time. My outward face may have some lines that turn down but my soul face is full of upward running wrinkles left by love, joy, grace and peace found in the living of my soul’s days. I am hardwired to seek God, to love God, to know God. So even though I know I can never fully fathom the true nature of God until I die, I find evidences of God’s presence in my life daily.
The Son of God, the man named Jesus, the one the Kings sought under the light of the Star, is one way I can see and hear and feel God. The words and stories and history of his presence on earth are one way I can know God. My brother, Jesus, ate and laughed and grew and cried and loved his parents just as I do. His life and death are my model for living and dying. His special relationship with his Daddy God challenges me not to get lost in the vastness of God, reminds me that God can be as close to me as my mama or daddy, as available and present as my friends in time of trouble.
What a paradox, what a mystery, vast and contained, mysterious and known, close and far away, one in three, heart of my heart and heart of the world, source of all creation and my creator, destination and journey, my God I love thee. Let the wrinkles on my soul face, created in star light and love, be pleasing unto thee, Dear One. And could you please help me learn to love my wrinkles, all of them, as my face and body and soul, like fine wine, age and ripen in the passage of time? Thank you for this body and face and soul of mine. It has been a gift beyond measure, this life of mine, and I am grateful for all of it. Peggy Hester