Change

When I look in the mirror in these days, I hardly recognize the guy who is looking back at me.  I guess I am still looking for that dark haired young man who could jump fences.  Sometimes my look in the mirror surprises me.  Even now I guess I am looking for the guy who has been gone for a long time.  One thing is certain.  If we manage to move through a few decades of life, a lot of things are going to change.  I no longer look like the man I used to see in the mirror. 

 

It is also true that my inner looks at who I am bring some measure of surprise as well.  While my faith in Christ is certain, perhaps, even more certain than ever, I also know it has changed as well.  For most of my life the way I expressed my faith centered around the life of the church with all its rituals and order.  My calendar was not based on the changing seasons, but was dictated by the changing colors of the liturgical seasons.  And while it will surely sound strange to some, the thing which speaks to me daily of the change in my life is the pocketknife I now carry every day in my jeans.  But, it is not just something I carry.  Most every day I pull it out and use it for some task.

 

Even as retirement has ushered in a new era of my day-to-day life, so has it ushered in a new era in my spiritual life.  While there is still some structure and a measure of discipline in the way I express my personal relationship with Christ, it seems that I have come to a place where it is more about practicing the Presence.  Like Brother Lawrence each day brings me to a new awareness of how God is present in everything around me and in everything that I do.  None of this is a declaration that I have come to a spiritual place that is better than anyone else might be; instead, it is simply a declaration that even as my physical body has changed in its run through the years, so has the part of me that I recognize as my inner spiritual being.