To Grow Old is a Privilege
I am thinking big, beautiful thoughts about growing old.
I was standing at my sink gulping down cold water when the idea suddenly engulfed me: I know and love women who no longer sip water on earth.
Oh, how exquisite is living, and oh how brief.
I closed my eyes, and eternity felt as though it was just - right there. At hand. It was as though the door was cracked open into heaven, and I stood in the threshold.
There was the setting sun. How completely appropriate. There was the liquid-fresh of water. The cool of the edge of the copper sink on my hand as it rest there. The songs of the birds through the open window. My aching body - now closer to 60 than 50 - after having worked hard all day.
I am exquisitely alive, and the time I have left to me is far shorter than the time I have behind me.
I said to the Holy Spirit, in that moment: “I will not do this thing without You. I stand here basking in every good and perfect gift of gardens and grandchildren and painting and passion and sunshine and flowers and the love of one lionhearted man. I have been young, and now I am old(ish) and I have never seen the righteous forsaken. I have friends who are faithful and fun. I have walked cobblestone streets of Europe and watched my children’s children play in the same yard my children played in. We’ve planted a thriving church together, You and I and The Preacher. So much is already mine, so many experiences of Your love that can never be taken from me, as I hit this fourth quarter of life’s game.
But Your manifest Presence AS I GROW OLD is my urgency, God! Very little else matters. Nothing else will give these remaining years any coherent context. The joy of Your Presence - that alone is the Indispensable Thing.”
I hope these thoughts do not sound dark or macabre to you, because all of that “Fleeting Immediate Raw Emotion” (F.I.R.E. - an acronym I often use in my art courses and classes) felt anything but dark. Rather, it felt powerful and strengthening and, dare I say it, almost giddy.
It felt like the sort of inspiration that would fuel a freaking legit artist.
Life is a marvel. To be sitting here, typing words on a Tuesday, words that will be blown like dandelion seeds to the ends of the earth, is marvelous. To grow old in God is a thrill.
I got a tiny taste of concentrated Comfort and Joy, that day standing at my copper sink. I drank distilled delight.
Heaven on earth, in a nondescript kitchen.
“(God said): My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And (Moses) responded, ‘If Thy presence go not up with me, carry us not up hence.’ ”
Another Collaboration Across Time, Space...And Even Religion
There are connections that only a mighty God can make.
Once again my friend Mujahid Ur Rehman (@mujahids_photography ) and I have collaborated across space and time and even religions. And it’s beautiful.
Mujahid (who The Preacher and I are privileged to simply call “Muji”) stumbled across my blog a couple of years ago. He is a nature photographer and video artist. He is a storyteller at heart, he has an incredible story himself, and he was drawn to some writing I’d done on the arts and creativity.
Muji’s wife Naseema is a physician, whose father, also a physician, was the personal physician to Nelson Mandela…(but it’s whatever. ;) ) Naseema is amazing in her own right both as a doctor, and as a watercolor artist. Muji managed to recruit his wife to be the featured character in our first collaboration. Here is a link to the back story:
And here is the link to that first video:
“The Three Inescapable Laws of Creativity” - a collaboration by Mujahids Rehman and Sheila Atchley
If you watch the above first collaboration, you will see a beautiful painting by Naseema featuring a bit of dandelion fluff with a sweeping vista. I am now the honored owner of that painting. I have a letter from Naseema taped to the wall of my home studio, where it inspires me daily.
Though we’ve never met, and Mujahid and Naseema live on the other side of the world, though he is Muslim and I am Christian, the following video is the second piece of my writing that Muji felt drawn to bring absolutely alive with his video talent:
I feel very honored. I also know that all this is for a reason. This message of the importance of our gifts and the fact that God wants wholeness for us, is already touching the lives of scores of women, as Muji is already getting messages and feedback about this latest video, our second collaboration.
He did all the hard work, he and Naseema and others. Their creativity together as a married couple is what feels priceless to me! (And by the way, I will also be the proud owner of the “cupcake” painting Naseema was working on in this video. It will also be framed, and hung proudly beneath the “dandelion” painting.)
I would love to ask you once again to pray for my friend and his wife. Again, it is my opinion that these are things only God can do, connections only He can make.
Please watch the video, maybe even “follow” Mujahid on YouTube and Instagram, and give these two videos a thumbs up.