Time

Five weeks ago we delivered a healthy son. He is already much bigger, more alert, and displaying the foundational aspects of his personality. Jack is five. Five years have passed since the day he breathed his first breath. Annie will soon turn three. I watch the years thunder by like a high speed train - clickity clack, clickity clack, clickity clack - and my heart aches. Another year is all but gone, its bundle of life tossed over our shoulders into the vaguely remembered past.

Time is a prostitute, she lends herself to everyone, but gives herself to no one. Have I taken full advantage of her this year? Have I Breathed in her fullness? Have I surrendered myself to experiencing each curve of her body and strand of her hair? Each soft place and hard place? Perhaps the fear of missing something keeps me from fully entangling myself in each moment.

But since there are so few moments, there is no point but to treat myself with nothing but compassionate understanding, allowing myself to passionately flail, and sometimes fail, through life. And to face the world - my children, my family, friends, and strangers - with the same gracious gift, as everyone else struggles to experience what moments they have.

So live in compassion. That is, I suppose, where God lives, too.