The time thief has struck again. What happened to 2023? The ragged old man with a cane of the old year snuck out the back door and the chubby hopeful baby of the new year leaped onto the calendar with a shout, “Here I am, ready or not!” I am the first to admit I am not ready. One day blends into the next marking off our lives with red Xs over the days gone by. We can’t gather them again. They are gone in a breath, never to return. The weeks stack up into years and years to decades, and we look back in wonder, “How in the world did I get so old so fast?”
I have one consolation; I don’t look at birthdays as a sign of age. I wrote a poem years ago explaining my view of birthdays and New Years.
Happy birthday
I feign to put a number on the
subject of your age.
You cannot measure a person's life
by the span of mortal years.
Life's quantity is figured
by every breath of service
and every smile of love.
So, if I could put a number
on the brilliant star-splashed sky
or on the crystal raindrops
falling in a summer storm.
If we could count the silver sand
upon a moonlight shore,
then perhaps we could begin to
understand how old you really are,
in the years that really count.
The new year is here, ready or not. Everyone wants the new year to be different from the last. We want it to be the year that our long-awaited dreams come true. This will be the year when all the resolutions we made last year will be easy and we’ll finally accomplish them. Some of us want to lose those pounds. We want our debts to magically go away. Some of us want to finally go on that dream vacation. Some want our relationships to heal or to find a new relationship that works better. Hope is the stuff that the new year is made of. How do we make it happen?
I have learned that resolutions don’t work; habits do. Only long-term habits yield long-term results, and only commitment and dedication to desire will make our dreams come true. I also learned that dreaming the wrong dream is possible. We can spend our entire lives climbing up and climbing down ladders, only to find we have been climbing the wrong ladders. It’s not that our dreams are bad, but they are not the dreams that will bring the happiness and contentment we are seeking. They are ladders leading into the clouds of Neverland.
I think of the young man who gave up his marriage to pursue bodybuilding at any cost. His muscles were strong and he looked like the Incredible Hulk, but one night, he had a heart attack and was gone. Perhaps he had reached his goal, but he was alone – alone with the memory of the price he had to pay and the question, “Was it worth it?”
I think of the woman who won beauty pageant after beauty pageant. She exercised and dieted until she was emaciated. She bought the most expensive wardrobe and jewelry. She was the toast of the long hall of fame in fashion for a while, but the years attacked her beauty and younger models took her place to strut across the golden corridor. She was left to wonder why she was alone in her luxury. Where was her joy?
What about the young father who jumps on the ladder leading to the top? He sacrifices family time, health and integrity to get the toys his neighbor has. He ignores the pleading of his wife and children who beg for his time with the excuse, “I’m doing this for you.” After long years of climbing, he looks back to find himself with lots of toys, no health and no one to share his stockpile. He realizes to his regret that his ladder leads only to loneliness and loss of precious family relationships.
Some dreams are selfish and if pursued in excess will be a ladder going nowhere. With so many ladders rising into the sky around us, how do we decide which ladder leads to fulfillment and happiness and which ones will lead us to loneliness?
"Now we see through a glass, darkly.” (1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV)
When I was in graduate school, I lived in a basement apartment, and there was a concrete slab wall planter box by our living room window. As I looked out, I could see my face mirrored in the glass. At the time, I remember thinking how foggy my image was in the glass. It reminded me of the words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “Now we see through a glass, darkly.”
As I pondered my image and the scripture, my mind was opened, and I understood what it meant to see through a glass darkly. As we catch our own reflection in a window, we are distracted from the view beyond. We cannot see other people or the beauties around us. We only see how we will benefit from every situation in life. We see through a glass as a mirror that only shows how we are improving. Paul wanted us to see with charity – the pure love of Christ; we look through the window to see the world beyond. We see others' needs and have desires to help them. As we develop the character traits of charity, we look beyond our image to see others face to face. We then perceive their needs and give them assistance. The more charity we have, the clearer our vision of ourselves through the eyes of others. We see them face to face, and someday we will see ourselves in the eyes of the Savior.
The ladder of charity leads to relationships, love and fulfillment. When we climb the ladder of charity, we have experiences that bring us closer to our fellow beings. We build our lives, our ambitions, our dreams and our resolutions to help others achieve their goals and dreams.
My husband was such a man. He made people feel loved and valued wherever he went. He’d meet people on the street and before the conversation was over, he would have given them a nickname and practically knew their life story. They were the best of friends. He would see someone’s needs and think of a way to help them. Once he noticed a lady was living in a house that didn’t have indoor plumbing. Without any thought of recompense for time and money, he built her an entire bathroom. He often gathered firewood for the widows in the area. Often, he built guitars and ukuleles to give to people just to say thank you for the service they had given to other people. He asked nothing in return. He taught his family to love and share. Nearly every Sunday evening, he would take his family around the neighborhood to sing for those who were lonely. He wrote songs for people’s weddings and funerals. He made treasure boxes (urns) for people who knew their days were numbered. You would think that his handiwork was shoddy because it was homemade, but not so. His guitars, ukuleles and treasure boxes were made from pieces of wood that were cut and sanded to perfection. He truly looked through the window of charity and never saw himself, and he was happy. I was the recipient of that charity, and I am a woman most blessed to have his memory to enjoy forever.
When we sit down to write our resolutions, it would be good to consider the first rung of the ladder and look to the top rung and ask, “If I climb, will I be helping someone else, or am I just helping me?” If we do that, it won’t hurt so bad next year when we evaluate the lost year. We will have treasured memories of smiles, laughter and tears of gratitude to enjoy in the years to come. We can recall those memories in the dying embers of our lives and be glad that our life has not been about the perfect body, the latest toys and highest rung on the corporate ladder. Charity will ring through our life with joy in the new years yet to come when the time thief takes away all our tomorrows.
