a time to die... and live

She sashayed down our driveway Easter Sunday morning many years ago, wearing her black headband and black eyeliner, on walkabout from the foster home up the mountain. Tail wagging, head cocked to one side, she was a flirt and we fell in love with her. Her owner had recently moved leaving her with a neighbor but she had decided on a different option. Our old basset and our retriever welcomed her without too much fuss so she became our second basset hound. We named her Phoebe for no good reason. It just sounded right for her personality. Soon the sounds of “Phoebe, dammit” echoed around the house. She was a beautiful tricolor basset with glamorous eyes and a roving disposition, a traveling hound with places to go and people to see. I began to make pickup trips, gathering Phoebe up and bringing her back home while I fussed at her for being such an adventurer.
Phoebe is old now, deaf and nearly blind, spending most of her days lying in the sun in the front yard sleeping and dreaming. Her black eyeliner is faded and her headband is silver. But in the cool morning air, her tail wags and she marches to the head of the line for the morning walk around the farm. When we leave home, she goes down the hill to mama’s house to wait for our return, lying out on the crest of the hill where she can see all the cars pass by. If it thunders, she will run over you to get to the safety of the basement. The afternoon walks Leisa takes with her dogs gives Phoebe a chance to revive her flirting skills... she sashays sideways, sidling up to Joe or Sam, coyly flirting with her eyes, feeling like a young girl again. And when I sit on the step, she comes to me, lays her paw or her head in my lap, waits, insists on being loved. Her life is drawing to a close but it still has meaning and joy.
I have lived my life as if it had no end like most of us do, I guess. Like Phoebe, each day comes and sometimes I travel through it without much reflection or recognition of my endtime. Living in the present is a spiritual practice that helps us be like the lilies of the field who neither toil nor spin, secure in the knowledge that life is a gift we neither deserve or earn. Lilies and old basset hounds know that the only time we have is the present, the here and now. They bask in the warm sun, turning their faces towards their Creator, and enjoy the gift of warmth. But all living creations come to the end of their time and it is the knowledge of this paradox that separates us from most of the rest of creation.
Living as if your time was always now and living as if you could die in the next minute is a balancing act for the soul. This is a truth I learned in my early twenties when death became more than an intellectual possibility. Death and grief were my constant companions for years. Living with the deaths of those whom I loved taught me to pay attention, to not waste, to value the presence of life. And now in my sixties, I am keenly aware of the flight of time. What my mother told me is true... time does seem to fly as you age.
The Old Testament writer speaks one time truth. “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Ecc. 9:11-12a” I want to know my time, the time left for me to live, my time living fully in the present with the sure and certain knowledge that my time will end. God of all time, help me to live with gratitude and grace in this time of my life. And if I lie out in the sun dozing and dreaming of days gone by, my heart is winging its way home to You full of laughter and praise. Amen.