Adventure in the great wide somewhere

On aging, longing, and learning (always learning).

Today’s my birthday. It’s one of those years that doesn’t have special meaning; no major milestone or nice, round decade. It is a prime number, though. I slyly mentioned to my husband (at ten years older than me, he is also in a prime number year): “We’re in our prime, love.” He gave me that boyish grin that will be the same ten, twenty, thirty years from now.

The family asked me last night what I want to do, where I’d like to eat (the all-important question) for my birthday. Like the question “what do you want for your birthday?” it is almost impossible to answer with anything tangible or accessible. When I say “nothing!” they aren’t satisfied. They lovingly push and cajole until I can come up with something they can either procure with hard-earned cash or make with long and nimble or short and dimpled fingers.

Little do they realize that they as a conglomerate make up one of my two real answers to that question—answers that boil down to the “nothing” I had already given in response.

What do I want for my birthday? Like Belle of Beauty and the Beast fame, I restlessly “Want adventure in the great wide somewhere/I want it more than I can tell.” The amazing, challenging, stimulating childhood I experienced along with the fabulous, fantastical books I read opened up vistas for the imagination: there is so, so, so much to explore in this world—this universe—created by the One with an infinite imagination. I want, as Johannes Kepler coined, “to think his thoughts after him.” I want to see all the works of his hands and experience the ways his image bearers have done their culture-making work: architecture, art, music, food, clothing, language…And if I don’t get to see it in person, like Belle, I’ll try my damnedest to read all about it.

At the same time as I want exploration, I also want more of a settled life. A life of family and home: recognizable, restful, characterized by a well-stocked pantry, surrounded by a well-established garden: cozy, sure, permanent. I want arms full of my beloved children (my riches)—and when they’re grown, my grandchildren. I want cuddles and reading aloud. I want games and meals together. I want quiet, easy moments before the fire and difficult (sometimes loud) moments of learning to allow my older daughters to become adults and fly the nest, my younger daughter to become more of herself. I want each of us to become more His, build more community, love others as he first loved us.

Every year that passes, these “two” desires grow more strongly in my heart; but each of them require me to have an open hand. Instead of grasping, I must relinquish. Instead of nursing earthly affections, I must turn these achey-appetites towards heaven for what will be requited there. Each year moves me closer to that new reality. Each year I pray: more of Christ; more love, Oh Christ, to thee.

Today, I started with the pining words of a Disney princess. But I must finish with words of promise spoken by a wandering wizard whose wisdom anchors my heart in bigger promises still. The adventure of a lifetime is only just begun:

…The journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it…White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.