One of Life’s Difficult Questions…

 

My son, the one who is eighteen, approached me with this question.  “Do you ever feel like you won’t have enough time in your life to do everything you want to do?”  My answer.  “Yes.”

He began to tell me how he has thought of so many things he would enjoy doing in life, then wonders how it will all work out.  I know exactly how he feels.  It is almost as if by the time we think we start to have things figured out, we are in the “second half of life” and hoping for at least a few more years to get it right.  God willing.

The twist is that we need all those “first half of life” experiences, every single one of them, to show us the way.  Some folks may not get to the “second half” stuff, for whatever reason.  Others may arrive a bit sooner.  Our age does not define this.  When we manage to work through the pain of falling, which is the doorway to the “second half of life” we cannot help but be changed.  We then begin to focus on what is most important in life, with no time to waste.  What a blessing! 

How do we live out the second half?  Some ideas:  we are more compassionate, more accepting; our core beliefs are woven into our being and are unshakable; the adventures of each day are just that-an adventure; we live out of our comfort zone more often than not; we are guided more by Spirit than by rules; loss and pain are part of the journey, yet our joy cannot be tampered with.  Just to name a few.   

My young son has a lot of living to do.  I look upon him with compassionate understanding, grateful to be where I am.

“There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life.”             Richard Rohr