GO:
For just about as long as I can remember, this season of the year has felt like the beginning of things: the start of school, when I was a student and the start of the church year when I was a pastor. But in that fascinating way life has a way of doing, it is also paradoxically a time for reflecting on the topic for today. When things begin again, I remember that everyone is older, another year older to be exact.
I see it most clearly in the little ones who are part of my life. The 'baby' is 18 months old today! Our five-year-olds are starting kindergarten - and I can hardly believe it to be true. Gracie was so proud in her new plaid uniform on Wednesday. Griffin has a couple of weeks to go, but he, too, is excited and proud. Proud to join his older brothers at their fine school, proud to be old enough and big enough and ready enough.
That's the joy of getting older when you're younger than...shall we say thirty? It feels exciting, grand, grown-up. Somehow that changes somewhere in our 30's. Getting older feels heavier somehow, the weight of responsibility and the realities of an aging body began to show up in larger-than-life ways. And with each decade, that becomes more pronounced. Don't get me wrong - I think there are glorious things to be said about every decade we are blessed enough to live through. But...there is this truth to be borne: our bodies get older, even if we're fortunate enough to keep a young and resilient mind.
As Madeleine L'Engle once said: "I am every age I have ever been." And I love that we can access those ages as we walk through our days. And I love that I personally get to remember through watching my kids and their kids move through the years. What a privilege and what a joy.
STOP
Pictures added after 'the bell.' Gracie and Lilly at our picnic lunch on vacation last week; Griffin at the ice cream parlor we stopped at driving home; Gracie in her new school uniform. Where does the time go??
