The Two Men

What is in me now was not in me then.  The older version of me with whom I live now each day looks a lot dfferent than the younger version portrayed in faded pictures from the past.  Should the two somehow meet, the younger guy would not be able to envision becoming the older guy and the older guy would think the younger guy has a long way yet to go.  Yet, despite the differences which are far more than external, the remembered version of the one who bears my name and the one seen in the mirror each day belong to one another.  

The younger guy knew a lot more about God and everything else than the older guy now professes.  The older guy has come to know that there is more that is unknown about everything and God than has ever been known.  The younger guy, of course, could not see the journey about to be undertaken and where it would lead.  In his head he knew it would, if life was generous with years, lead to the old guy who stands daily in amazement that he is still here.  The two men in my life, the one young and the other old, are like bookends which keep things in perspective and in order so that everything does not fall off the shelf at the first shaking of the earth beneath their feet.    

The thing of wonder is that though so different, God brought both into being.  The one closer to the beginning thought it was more about what could be done and so lived a fast and hurried life while the one closer to the end has learned to live slower with eyes that see things never seen by the youger guy.  One of the things seen more clearly by the one closer to the end is grace.  Divine grace.  What is known now is that holy grace has enabled the journey from here to there and that same grace will finally make both the younger guy and the older guy a lingering memory here and a holy mystery there.