Another Auld Lang Syne

Living like a gypsy, and dreaming like a kid
Can make you old before your time

There comes a time in every man's life when he must, as a friend once told my brother, "sack up." Or, as K-Bo was fond of saying, "don't be a b****, man up." There's more of K-Bo in me than I used to think, and there's more of my brother in me than he ever knew. There is a constant, biting itch, a longing to escape, to get up and go, as God told Abraham to do. Yet I feel that the itch is less of God's call then my own refusal to face life. How happy I am and have been. Why, then is there the desire to pack and leave, to tell my friends they can do without me, that I'm for another time and another place? Responsibility is what separates a man from a child. Boyishness has its delight. Responsibility brings cares and troubles. Yet, viewed another way, when we answer God's call and take responsibility for our own lives and our own actions, is that not the only way to find joy in life? For, to be sure, one cannot run forever. We spend our lives searching for a way out. We run from God, from Truth, and from Holiness. We seek our comfort in sex and booze and money, in people, in things, in work (aye, for the constant drive to always be doing is an escape as well).

Antti once told me I have at least ten years before I have to settle down, and that I should live it up and enjoy life while I'm young. There is a protest in my mind and in my heart, though. For if I live the so-called good life now, will I not have to face up to the real world later, and perhaps with regrets for the time I wasted? It is one thing to experience life and the world, to go places, to try things, to learn people and gain friends and memories. And indeed, what is there for me to leave behind in my childhood? Certainly, I should leave behind the foolishness, the selfishness, the ego. Should I also run from the people who have shaped my life? After this Christmas, I think I cannot.

And it was Christmas that showed me the folly of the old saying "you have to grow old, you don't have to grow up." Too many people never grow up, and so much pain and darkness is the result. Too many never face their God and answer his call. Too many live their lives for themselves. Even a dear friend of mine once told me that, in the end, I should do whatever made me happy, never understanding that those who follow their own will are rebelling against the natural order, and demonstrating a profound lack of care for their brothers and sisters, strangers and sojourners together on this earth.

Six friends and two brothers made my Christmas what it was. One, older than I by six or seven years, just began working as a missionary. She was an assistant youth leader when I was in highschool, and was one of a few that I have always respected tremendously. I saw her joy with life, and I was happy for her.

Another, a girl only in the eighth grade, comported herself like a fine young lady almost twice her age. I have known her since she was seven, and it brought me a smile to see her growing up so well, though she is no child of mine. Thinking of her, and of the other younger kids I know from the times I was in A Christmas Carol, I can only hope that as they grow older, as they face the turning points in their lives, that they face them well, stand tall, and never fall away. To see my friends grow up beside me, or perhaps behind me, and to see some of them fall astray, it hurts. I cannot imagine the care that a father must have to see his own children grow old, to see their mistakes, their triumphs, their failings and their graces. Could I someday bear that burden? If so, I hope I bear it well.

And then four more, much closer to my own age, though indeed Emily Sue is yet in highschool, and Shane is but a freshman in college. To see them and know the changes we have all been through in our lives, to know even a tiny bit of their stories, and to know that still, through it all, we are friends, though our roads are different and we often bear our troubles alone, there is still a care there.

And my brothers, one facing his own trials as a man, another standing on the verge of becoming a man whom I would have proud to walk with his older brothers, that we three, separate but always together, may face the world out there. I hope he is the best of us. He is certainly no longer the baby. I find it strange to think that he will finish growing up without me there, but I look forward to seeing him a better man than his elders.

All this has given me pause to reflect, and to find in the road ahead some joy at the thought of taking responsibility, of being a man - not of making my mark on the world, but of making some small mark in the hearts of those I meet. I stood at midnight last night with my new friends, and though I've known them but a short time, they, too, mean so much to me. In my head and in my heart I drank with them, with Chad Hillhouse, with Katherine Heil, with Nancy and Rachel and Doy, with all the old faces from my childhood, here and gone, I raised a glass and drank a toast to innocence, a toast to time, and a toast - to old times and new times, first times and last times, and the times we've never had.