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Still Green<br><br>
We're having the first sunny day after more than a week of grey
skies. I walked down to the village to pick up a prescription at
the drugstore, through a landscape that's still astoundingly green. A few
trees are starting to turn, but only a few. The grass is still pure
emerald, freckled with very late dandelions and the occasion clear blue
of cornflowers. I have to say that I'm loving every moment of
it.<br><br>
Despite the beauty, this lasting green is not a Good Thing. I read in the
newspaper that this failure of Leaf Season to arrive is a sign that the
trees got badly stressed by last summer's intense heat and dryness.
Presumably they're hanging onto their leaves trying to top up the
nutritional reserves they need to get through their winter dormancy.
Health, in this case, is a seasonal die-off done seasonably, and that's
not happening. <br><br>
It's in a deciduous tree's job description, at least around here, to turn
colour, drop leaves, and spend Mud Season settling down for real winter.
It's in our job description too -- obviously in different ways (unless
you are personally deciduous, which, if you're reading this, is not
likely). Unless early death intervenes, each and every one of us is going
to go through the mammalian equivalent, and we don't leaf out
again. <br><br>
We spend much of the first half of our lives, perhaps even longer, with
the deep-down conviction that old age is what happens to other people,
bolstered by a culture that yells constantly that we can be rejuvenated;
we just have to buy the right products, eat the right diet, get the right
amount of exercise and we can at least stall, and maybe even stop, the
process. We can, of course, make decisions that will help us stay
healthier longer, but the fact is that aging isn't a thing that happens
to us; it's built into us, wired deep into our cells. The only uncertain
thing is the timing. <br><br>
Up until fairly recently, I entertained delusion that I was going to be
an exception, but since my last birthday, they're beginning to die away.
I look younger than I am, but I no longer look young. I'm beginning to
see the first real marks of age, and frankly I hate them. If I were
deciduous, I'd certainly have started to change colour and lose a few
leaves. I know I still have years left, but I'm starting really to
believe that I am going to be old. <br><br>
This is one of the areas where faith supports me most. Whatever the world
may think of aging, God has no problems with it. I am still as attractive
in God's eyes as I was when I was a leggy 18-year-old -- perhaps even
more so, since I suspect that God likes the marks of wisdom on a woman's
skin. God knows what every cell of my body has been up to in the
last let's-not-say-how-many years, what stressors my tissues have had to
handle, the effects of too much stress-related cortisol on my midsection,
what causes the slight arthritic twinge in my right hip. God knows the
emotion stowed away in the knots in my back (we're working on
that). God knows my smile-lines and frown-lines and the weathering
of skin on my once-smooth hands -- the same elegant hands my sons
inherited. God sees all these not as the current culture sees them,
as a sort of failure or defeat, but as the natural, inevitable marks that
my life has left on my body. A sort of spiritual patina, if that
makes sense. Faith tells me that.<br><br>
Faith whispers an even bigger secret. I carry in my bones the belief that
this life isn't the end -- that while the transition may be difficult and
scary, there will be a Life to Come and a physical resurrection for me.
That may be a self-comforting delusion, as many believe, but for me, it
<i>is</i> bone-knowledge. I believe that that new life is mine not
because I've done anything to earn it, but because it's God's gift
through my Lord Jesus the Christ; all I need to do is to lay claim to it,
and it will be mine. I will become, in that Life, everything that I
should have been in this life, and much, much more.<br><br>
So the prospect of age shouldn't bother me, and mostly (except when I
catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a public mirror) it doesn't.
What matters isn't what my body gets up to in the years to come, but what
I make of my soul. My job isn't to try to be young any more; it's to get
belief out of my head and into that space behind my heart where my soul
seems to dwell, so that even if my mind fails me, my soul will know the
love of God and will radiate that love outward. I don't know how far I
can get with that task, but I'm going to give it a good solid
try.<br><br>
In the meantime, this particular day has its very particular beauty, and
I'm going to take my not-yet-elderly body out for another walk.
It's much too nice to be indoors.<br>
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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.</body>
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