A Sense of Life

One of my fellow priests came into my office just now. He is a retired priest with over 50 years in the Priesthood. He recently decided to scale back his responsibilities at the church and is looking to thin out his library. This is someone who has collected and read more books than I can even imagine and he feels it is time to pass a lot of them along and wants me to take a look at what I would like for my young collection.

It was a short friendly call about some old books, but it struck me. I have been a priest for a grand total of 4 days now and I am just getting started. Here is a man who has been a part of the ministry for more years than I can wrap my head around and his visit made think about what things must look like on the other side of things, where our lives are coming to a close and we can look back over decades of life lived, both good and bad.

I find myself feeling like I have lived a lot of life, but only have 10 or 15 years to really draw upon, but mostly I am looking ahead to what will happen in the future. Where will I be serving in 10 years, 20 years. Will it be in Pittsburgh? Will I be married and have kids? I want to have a family, but I don't even know if that is going to happen. It feels like all of life is still in front of me.

I think this and then I remind myself that I am in my life right now. It is all too easy to forget that very simple fact and instead fall into the trap of living in the future or in the past. It is a danger we all face at every stage in life...the temptation of "something else." If I can just... If I could have only... Why did I do it that way? Next time I will do it differently.

These questions will always plague us, but in the midst of it all my hope is to be able to celebrate the good, mourn the bad, and simply live life as it comes knowing at tall times that I am loved by a graceful and merciful God.