A sensitive but probing comment from a dinner companion caused me to consider anew the privilege and blessing in knowing your days are numbered.

Dinner with friends a few evenings ago led to a conversation not usually found on a list of social dinner topics. My last blog post generated comments and questions about living in appreciation of life’s moments without assumptions of endless tomorrows. As we discussed this post my host struggled to express a sentiment that he worried would offend for its insensitivity. Finally, it came out. To paraphrase,

“You, Dona, know your mortality on a visceral level, affording opportunity for deep reflection and insight into life, death, God, and eternity. Now, any of us here could die before you, but we would have missed an opportunity to think through these questions. Here comes the part which might offend – because of your awareness of the eminence of your death you are more blessed than us.”

My dear friend had made an insightful and totally sensitive comment. He would have never said this to a young adult or parent with young children. There is the fact that at 68 I have lived long enough to see children grow up and to have experienced a lot of life. I am old. Not-ready-to-die-old but living longer than the majority of the world.

So, I considered anew the significance of being able to live thoughtfully and gratefully. There is a strange privilege and blessing in knowing your days are numbered. You ponder more.

My latest pondering

For too long I have thought of eternal life as what happened after death and having nothing in common with life as I know it. A deeper examination of what Jesus says reveals a “nowness” to this eternal life.

And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”
– 1 John 5:11

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
– John 5:24

So,

• How do I live more fully into this eternal life promised by Jesus?
• How can I already see myself in this ‘already-eternal-life’ so that the end will be, as my friend called, “going from life to more life”?

One of the ways I cultivate this “now-ness” was described in my last post. I nurture curiosity in as many things as I can realizing that this joy of learning and discovery are mere intimations of more to come. Second, when I laugh with and love those around me I resist the joy-snatcher demons that want to remind me that I won’t have this for long. Rather, I remember Jesus’ words, “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” I now assume that this joy I experience is a glimpse of a completed joy to come. And finally, I think about Jesus who said that He was and is the light, the way and the resurrection; a spring of water that quenches all thirst for unfulfilled longings. He’s the real deal, the conduit to life eternal. He’s a joy to know and to know better.

(Caveat:  I’m not superhuman. I have my down moments as you might suspect but many days I live in the life of more life to come.)

A conversation with my grandsons somehow led to the telling of the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. I took some liberties with the story and highlighted parts that I knew would intrigue them, like the tension and animosity between Jews and Samaritans at that time. I emphasized how Jesus would have no part of that nonsense. By the end of the story, the 9-year-old spontaneously commented, “that Jesus is a great guy.” Bulls eye hit! Hallelujah! Nothing more needed to be said, just letting that thought sit with him and with me. Jesus, a great guy, a great God who offers the eternal life now with all its evolutions, dimensions, progressive developments and for tastes of the new heavens and new earth to come.