A FULL LIFE [F, 2-9-18]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…

 When you get old enough, folks will say, especially in your obit, “She lived a full life.”

A life full of years. Four score and ten.

At any age, your life is full. Perhaps not complete, but it’s full… of something.

I know folks whose lives are bull of bovine excrement. Full of addiction. Full of delusion. Full of hypocrisy. Full of greed. Full of lust. Full of loneliness. Full of yearning. Full of self. Full of jealousy. Full of bitterness. Full of revenge. Full of strife. Full of hate.

Some, though, are full of hope.

Marcus Borg says that Jesus “…lived a life full of God.” Isn’t that a wonderful phrase? A life full of God. I think that is what John Wesley meant when he said we should “go on to perfection.” Perfection doesn’t mean a life empty of mistakes, but a life full of God.

I’m old. My life is full of years. But no life is ever full only of time. This day, my life is full of something more than time. What is it?

A gift of old age is the space to look at our lives with greater honesty, to empty our lives of the old stuff they are full of so that something beautiful can come to dwell in that place.

So that our lives can be whole rather than just full.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet sometimes as yooper1721. Well, that’s the only way I tweet. My life is full of grammatical complexities.