Grass blowing

Tomorrow it will be 8 years since Anselm Samuel was born. Where did it go? The "little boy", that's what I used to call him, is hidden under the rough and tumble little man. He's already asking me what he what new things he will be allowed to do as a teenager. I barely remember the day he was born. I have a few mental snapshots. The things I said I would never forget have been forgotten. And I'm 41! With as much gray and white in my beard as red and brown. It's strange. Like Anselm, I'm still me but I am not, in many ways, who I was yesterday. Life goes by so fast. I mean, my body is wearing out. Though I am by no means weak, I am not as strong as I was when I was 20.

Something I've never thought about until now is that this might be why, in general, older people tend to be more religious. We see life zooming past and realize that if there is no after life all this stuff we experience between conception and death is meaningless, pointless.

We know it isn't pointless. Not, I think, the way philosophers know things. We don't have to reason out extremely precise arguments. We merely have to feel the difference between right and wrong. If we are aware of moral rules we know there is more to life than matter.

Christians know more than that, of course. We know this life, though fleeting, will be renewed. Though I die, yet shall I live. That is what we know. The grass that withers and is blown away will be gathered. Not blade will be lost. Memory will not fade but shall be eternal.