The way we spend our days…

Last night was the rehearsal dinner for my son’s wedding this Saturday. I had the honor to offer a few words and a toast for them at the gathering for family and the wedding party, and while I was writing the toast earlier in the day, these words by the wonderful writer Annie Dillard came to mind:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

For what I’ve learned over the past 30 years of marriage and 24 years of parenthood is what all parents learn: Time goes way too fast. It’s a cliché, I know, but it’s absolutely true. We old folks aren’t lying when we say it seems like yesterday when we were diapering our babies and sending them off to kindergarten and coaching little league baseball. That’s exactly the way it feels, and when we reach landmark days in our lives (like our children’s wedding day) we are reminded in not very subtle ways how quickly the whole she-bang is passing by.

So as tempting as it sometimes is to look at our entire lives as one huge chunk of unalterable time, on days like this it’s wise to remember the obvious: That we live our lives one day at a time, and we have the chance to change our lives and the way we live them with every new rising and setting sun. It’s why Sue and I love sunsets so much. It’s not just the beauty; it’s the promise of something new on the horizon.

One of the young guests at the dinner last night, whom I had not met before, came up after my toast and said he enjoyed what I said about living lives of meaning and purpose. I asked what he did and he said he worked in an office job but really wanted to be a teacher, maybe even a professor. I hope he lives up to that passion and dream. I hope he doesn’t find himself 30 years from now saying, “I should have done that…”

For how sad it is that any of us might not do what we seem called to do, that we might live our lives never embracing the small voice inside us that says, “teach” or “sing” or “nurse” or “own a business” or “be of service…”

All of this reminds me of yet another line from Annie Dillard, this time from her outstanding, 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”:

“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.”

So to my friends, young and “old-er,” don’t wait another day to start living the life to which you seem called.

And to Jon and Jess, on the eve of your wedding, I hope you remember and embrace the words of my toast to you and your life together:

May your wedding day be all you ever dreamed it would be.

May your days be filled with work that brings you joy and meaning and purpose, never forgetting that the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.

May your evenings be filled with both quiet times together and loud and happy times with family, friends and plenty of good food.

May your years be filled with unflagging friendships and the joy of children made in your own images.

May the promises you make be a source of faith and strength in each other and in God.

And may your lives of service to each other and to the world be a living symbol to all those around you that God is alive and moving and working in the world today.

[And thanks to two friends who helped inspire this post. To Judi Linville, who first  introduced me to “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” back in the 80s; and to Jill Stratton (soon to be Dr. Stratton!), who lives her life every day reminding the students she works with to embrace their passions and never forget that, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”]