Bonus Days: A Birthday Reflection

Dear Friends,

In May, I turned 70… Three score and 10.

Neighbor Eddie Curran reminds me that any days or years going forward belong to the ‘bonus decade’. I'll gladly take what’s given.

Earlier in May, I was in Italy, where I had spent time with a group of winsome travelers making short leisurely stops, three nights each, at Capri, Sorrento, Ravello (!), and Rome. If you have been to the Amalfi Coast, you'll understand the futility of my trying to describe (or even catch in photographs) that beautiful stretch of the Mediterranean. (If you've not been there, say ‘yes’ if you're ever invited.)

In packing for the excursion, I made the decision to leave my phone and computer at home. I'm almost as addicted and dependent on my devices as the rest of the world but, after the initial nervousness of driving away from my home empty-handed, I was happily untethered and able to be fully present to the people and places we encountered. I'm happy to report that I survived the separation, though the avalanche that greeted me when I got home remains formidable. (And, to be candid, I knew that, if there was an emergency at home, I was accessible via phones of those on the trip with me.)

On my birthday, I listened to a thought-provoking interview about a travel company that organizes group tours in which blind tourists are paired with sighted ones. (Link: Sites Unseen: What’s Revealed by Traveling With the Blind) It was a remarkable conversation which had me trying to imagine — having just returned from seeing the Sistine Chapel, the columns of the Pantheon, the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, and the sculptures of Michelangelo — what it must be like to stand sightlessly in the presence of those spectacles. What would the sensory experience be? And how would I even begin to describe those articles of art and architecture to a traveling companion who had been blind from birth, whose interaction with the world relied entirely on the senses other than sight.

My point?

Someone asked me in an interview recently, “What is something you’re afraid of?”

Short answer: lots of things. (Not proud of that but not too proud to own it.)

At 70, here's a big one…

I fear that one year or ten years from now, I will be the same person I am now, that I will have suffered a diminished sense of wonder, that I will become too tired or too complacent or too disenchanted with human foible to engage energetically with the world around me any longer.

I hope and trust that I will be spared that fate and that, by slow degrees, I might instead become more loving, more generous, more wise, kind, teachable, forgiving, and hopeful as the years roll on. I pray I’ll be more cheerful, more joyful, more good humored.

In short, more alive.

To get there, I might have to put away my phone for hours, days, or weeks at a stretch. I might have to join hands (literally) with someone whose perceptiveness is keener, clearer, deeper than mine. Someone who can hear and taste what I can only see.

The goal, of course, always, is to be a carrier of Christ’s truth and goodness in the world. There is always room for change and improvement in that noble pursuit. But isn’t the payoff worth it?

I’m looking forward to the bonus days ahead. And happy you’ll be along for the ride.

Thank you for helping me arrive at this landmark, and for making the ‘tour’ such a pleasure. What a gift it's been to walk through the world with ones like you.

Let’s grow old together.

Happy birthday to me
Happy indeed.

Love,

allen