Frightened of Eternity

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My calendar has an orange-lettered name on today’s date: “Aunt Agnes.” Her name is in parentheses, though, indicating she’s passed away. Aunt Agnes died 30 years ago and would have been 97 today, had she lived. I decided to keep her birthday on the calendar, as a reminder of someone we all loved.

Since Aunt Agnes died, there’s been a great deal of orange ink added to my calendar, the births of many babies and the addition of many friends’ birthdays. Some squares have two or even three names written on them, and in recent years I’ve been adding orange names to the calendar on the death days of people precious to us, too. If I live to be an old lady, will there be any empty squares left?

Most of us keep track of life by our calendars, and it’s hard to imagine a future time when we’ll no longer need them. But Nate and Aunt Agnes are living in a calendar-free environment along with millions of others, and one day we’ll be there, too.

At the moment of death, times comes to a screeching halt, a truth we have trouble internalizing. None of us has ever known life outside of time. Everything we do depends on the day-night cycle of 24 hours: sleeping, eating, working and taking out the garbage.

When we no longer have access to a clock or a calendar, how will we know what to do when? And won’t we forget some very important dates?

I’ve been frightened thinking about eternity, not about the afterlife in general but about not having a way to mark time. God made all of us time-sensitive. Its possible Adam and Eve were the only two people who didn’t give time a thought, although they did experience day and night, morning and evening. Once we die, even those general guidelines will disappear.

Back in the sixties, during the Viet Nam War, POWs found ways to mark off their days in captivity, even if it was just a dot on the wall. We all want to know where we stand. Yet from ages past, Scripture has taught that we’re eternal beings, meant to live forever. In our heart-of-hearts we know that, but have we embraced it?

More often than not we ascribe calendar characteristics to heaven. We say, “Grandma has celebrated five birthdays with Jesus now,” or “Dad has enjoyed 19 Christmases in paradise.” This we understand. But from their perspective, heaven’s citizens know we’re talking nonsense.

On several occasions I’ve sat quietly and meditated on the word “eternal”, trying hard to take in its meaning and begin thinking biblically. But each time it’s been very unsettling. There’s always more… and more… and more.

One of the verses to “Amazing Grace” makes me nervous:

  • When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
  • Bright shining as the sun,
  • We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
  • Than when we’d first begun.

This scenario doesn’t compute for me. It does compute for some people, though, Aunt Agnes and Nate among them.

I guess the only way to cope with this mystery is to entrust it to God’s keeping, knowing he’ll explain it to us when the time… is right.

“He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11b)

Back to School

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Birgitta and I spent today with hundreds of students and their parents getting “oriented” to college life at the University of Iowa. Although I was old enough to be the parent of some of the other parents, I tried not to dwell on my Medicare membership. My outfit also bothered me. Although I worked hard on deciding what to wear, in the end I looked like I’d just finished a shift at Target.

Birgitta opted to stay in the dorm these two nights while I slept at a Super 8. But we spent much of the day together getting acquainted with the university, the place she’ll call home in August. Before breakfast she’d already perused her thick packet of materials and was far more knowledgeable about the school than I. But that’s how this whole chapter of her life has been. She did all the phoning, emailing, contacting, questioning and filling out of endless forms. I did nothing, which was evident when she handed me my Hawkeye dinner ticket this afternoon. “You’re all set, Mom,” she said, probably wondering if I’d remember where I put the ticket by dinner time.

I miss Birgitta already. She’s throwing herself into orientation activities and is pumped to get started, wanting to take advantage of more university opportunities than 24 hour days will allow. Her eyes lit up when one speaker mentioned that the school offers 500 student-run organizations, 200 extra-curricular clubs, 22 languages, 100 majors and 24 varsity teams (Big Ten football among them). She also loves the idea of attending a school with over 30,000 kids and a freshman class of nearly 5000. But she’s my baby, and when the time comes to leave her, I’ll probably cry.

Walking between meetings today, we talked about her father and how much we missed his presence at this event, the only college orientation in our family he’s been unable to attend. But we smiled thinking of the gusto with which he would have thrown himself into these two days.

Nate graduated from a Big Ten school, actually two of them: Northwestern University and also the University of Illinois Law School. Although he wasn’t into sports, he was into the countless advantages of a giant university and made it a priority to identify all that was offered as soon as he arrived on campus… just like this daughter.

Nate loved school and the concept of ongoing education. He’d have been a lifelong university student if he could have. When I hear Birgitta talk about shaping her four undergraduate years toward a grad degree, I know this apple hasn’t fallen too far from its paternal tree. If Nate had been with us at the university today, he’d have told his seventh-born to think about the verse of Scripture that had influenced him more than any other. He’d have reminded her she was at the beginning of a brand new race set before her by God himself and should run it with endurance.

I’ll be praying for her endurance… and maybe Nate will, too. And despite what scholars think, I’ll be wondering if Nate is cheering in that multitude of witnesses, watching the race from his spot in a heavenly grand stand.

“Since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

Hankie-Help

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Rhett Butler was never without a handkerchief when Scarlett needed one, because he was a classy guy. Having a ready hankie was the mark of a true gentleman.

Nate was a gentleman, too.

I can’t count the times I needed his hankie-help when we were away from home. Coffee spills, make-up gone awry, tears at a funeral or sticky fingers. The uses were endless. His hankie was usually out of his suit pocket before I’d looked up from my sudden need, and he never gave a thought to the fact that he might want it later himself and find it soiled by his wife.

I can remember watching my mother put a handkerchief in her purse each time she went out, noticing that my father had one, too. People of that generation didn’t use Kleenex with abandon like I do. They were “thinking green” well before it was the thing to do.

I also recall shopping with Mom to buy a bridal shower gift. She selected a handkerchief made of gauzy white linen fanned out in a square flat box and wrapped in tissue. The embroidered pink roses on one corner were matched by a pink edging all around. As a young girl I knew the bride would love it and wondered if she might even carry it on her wedding day.

When we were cleaning out Mom’s drawers after she died, she had quite a collection of beautiful hankies. But short of using them in an art project, we didn’t know what to do with them. Times had changed. Although I remember every elderly auntie tucking a handkerchief in her dress sleeve  with the decorative part showing, today’s women were different. And Mom’s hankie supply went to Good Will.

I can see how hankies are wonderful for mopping up moisture — from eyes, noses, clothes, children’s faces and unnumbered other places. And life is fraught with messes that need this kind of attention. Although I’ve never owned my own hankie, I was delighted to be married to a handkerchief-carrying gentleman. I needed him, and I needed his hankies. Both helped me clean up many a mess.

Sometimes I think about the Lord and his expertise at cleaning up after us.   Throughout the Bible he mopped up a variety of disasters, and he’s in the same business today, offering his services to those of us who keep messing up. And the best part about his cleaning is that it isn’t just surface work. What he offers goes deep into the heart and fixes up what cannot be touched with a hankie but is far more difficult to clean. It’s the buried soil of sin.

But the beauty of God’s mess-mopping is that once things have been cleaned up, he’s willing to let the past stay in the past. Although I don’t think God actually forgets anything, he does promise not to keep bringing up the messes we’ve made. They’re as good as forgotten.

I still remember quite a few of the wet clean-ups Nate’s hankies helped me with, and many of the handkerchiefs show stains to testify of their histories. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, Nate never brought these things up to me again either. Like Rhett Butler, he was just happy he could help.

” ‘Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.’ “ (Isaiah 1:18a)