Life does NOT go fast...

...but at the end we all ask "Is that all there was?".

Quite recently, a family friend fell very ill and was literally at death's door. Thanks be God, they have recovered (a seeming miracle), but it was "touch and go" there for a few days. In reflecting on the reality that our earthly relationship with this person might draw suddenly to a close, I was struck with a feeling of "Is that all there was? Is it over?" As my mind wandered to the other deaths I have dealt with recently I found that the same feeling holds. Take my dad for instance, my relationship with him somehow seems incomplete, as though there were chapters that remain still to be written but never will be.

My parents and grandparents used to use the proverbial phrases "Life goes fast" or "Life's too short". I don't think these quite get it right. I don't find life to be fast. Indeed, I find that much of life is very slow. But, I am beginning to recognize that when death arrives, I repeatedly find myself asking "Is that all there was? Is there nothing more?" I guess, in this sense, it can seem, in the face of the "once-ness" of life, that it went "fast". It is a strange sort of ironic blessing that with my daughter Theresa I experienced some of the "slowest" and "longest" days of my life with her early breathing difficulties which now make the short nine months that we had her seem qualitatively like more than they actually were. For my other children, who didn't have any breathing problems (or any problems, really) the first nine months of their lives seem to have passed such that I can't even recall specifics.

Coupled to this "is that all there is?" observation is another one that came to me early this morning. I recognize that there are in some sense two sets or classes of things that I devote my attention to. The first are the "urgent" - things related to work that come up quickly and require all of my attention to get them off of my plate so that I'm ready for the next one. Dealing with these is like handling the proverbial "hot potato". Parallel to, but separate from, the "urgent" are what I will call the "important" - e.g. my wife, my kids, my faith. These I liken to writing in a book, using carefully chosen words, written in flowing script with a quill pen, and oriented toward a long view.

That said, my life at present is something like trying to do both of these things at the exact same time - juggle the hot potato and write the book with the quill pen. As can be imagined, the juggling of the hot potato causes the writing of the book to happen in fits and starts, a stream of consciousness with lots of unfinished sentences.

The spiritual insight that I have been receiving (this time courtesy of Fr. J.P. Cassaude...) recently is that this state of "juggling/writing" IS the life of man as written by God. The book that will ultimately matter in the end is not the frantic disjoint scribbling I manage to get out in-between hot potatoes (sp? - help Dan Quayle...), but rather the book being written by God in my heart as I do my best to cooperate with the power (called "Grace") He gives me to do it. I find a sense of relief and peace in this knowledge.

Otherwise, I would get pretty sick of the hot potatoes...

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