My wonderful wife, Deidre, sent me this e-mail a few years ago and I posted it to my blog then. I felt compelled to repost it today, I hope it brings some light on your life, I know it has mine.
I live on Spring Street. The same Spring Street in Hot Springs, AR that my parents lived on in 1972 when I was born. I know, I know, what’s remarkable about that? Lots of people live in the same town that they were born, right? Lots of people live in the same town their whole lives. What’s remarkable is that I left. Well, more accurately my parents left 28 years ago. They moved 1,200 miles away to Maryland. I was raised there. I grew up there. There was my home – not this place of southern remote quaintness that I don’t quite get. What I get is right outside of Philly- Delaware bluntness.
You see, I was never coming back here. Graduated from college, got married, moved to Florida 3 years later, had 3 babies, co-pastoring a church, living it out. I was never going to live in Arkansas! Are you kidding me? Then, the bottom fell out and too many events happened to dive into here. God opened a nothing-short-of-miraculous door and - voila! Here I am living on the same street on which I was born. My life has been a great big circle passing from mid-south to north-east to south-east back to mid-south - one big, ironic circle.
Since this, I’ve started noticing circles everywhere. No, not the geometric shape, but circles of life (My apologies to the Lion King.) We originate with God, in the unknown cosmos of eternity and galaxy and infiniteness, and are born into these little fragile, earth bodies. From our first breaths, we want to GO! We learn to roll, scoot, crawl, walk and then RUN. We go to school then go to college then go out on our own then go to work, all under the illusion that we are really going anywhere at all. We all work so hard to try to forget that the finish line is right back at the starting point - with God, in the unknown cosmos of eternity and galaxy and infiniteness. Life is a circle. Some circles are large. Other circles are way too short, like my cousin Frog’s and my friend Annette’s. They both passed this year - both from cancer - both in their 30’s - both circles way too short.
So, what’s the point? The point is to get rid of the illusion - to get our heads out of the sand. If the end is the beginning, then run in your circle with that full realization. Enjoy every minute of it. Squeeze every ounce of life and joy and love out of it. Live your dreams. Seize the day. But always, always remember your Maker. Live so that when that finish line comes into view it doesn’t frighten you. Be prepared for that day. That day will come, your circle will be complete, and you’ll be back where you started from.
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