Time is Too Short!

Sixty, they say, is the new forty. Our life expectancy is ever lengthening, so much so that there is talk of postponing pensions to allow for this.

Not surprising then that mortality has ceased to feature among the options of a materialist world! Hip replacements and other spare parts ensure a minimum risk of our being ‘sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything,’ or at least the appearance thereof.

The isolation of the elderly also helps us in this deceit as they are moved progressively from family homes in the wider community into apartments and then to residential and nursing homes before the exit. Yet the fantasy image sold to those just retiring is still one of eternal leisure - a place in the sun, or at least in the country, and an eternal youthfulness that will never fail them – what Irish folklore calls ‘Tír na nÓg.’

I must seem a bit of a spoilsport then when at funerals I read the Psalmist’s words about the 3 score years and ten, or perhaps 4 score that are our allotted span, and even more so when I suggest subtracting from those allocated 7 or 8 decades the number that we have already used, in full or part - for no one really wants to know that life is so very short or that it slips away so quickly.

This isn’t meant to bring gloom on a Wednesday morning but simply to underline the importance of grasping each passing moment, for time is too short to waste on angers, disagreements, or even on fleeting worldly ambitions.

And that’s why one of my favourite parts of Dickens is where the elderly Scrooge wakes up to find that he is still alive. The bed was his own. The room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own in which to make amends. ‘I will live in the past, the present and the future,’ he says. ‘I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, as merry as a schoolboy.’

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Gracious God, You have given us the miracle of renewing life. Help us to see that the value of our lives are measured in how we live and not how long. As we await the birth of Your son, may we always be guided by Your gentle breath. Amen

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