Number Your Days

The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength even eighty . . . 

 - From Psalm 90

The entire Psalm 90 is rich with wisdom and perspective. It is about the brevity of our lives. It is realistic about our destiny - we are dust. We came from dust, and to the dust we will return. I am called a "child of earth," and so are you. 

Lest we despair, that death is the end of it for all of us, the Psalmist reminds us that a thousand years in God's sight are like yesterday when it's past. So that, although we may die, and dry up and merge back into the ground; it will seem but an instant, when Christ returns and we are resurrected into new bodies.

I get an opportunity today, to reflect on one statement in particular, the one quoted: that we were built to live about 70 years . . . maybe 80 if we're in great shape.

We are, this month, remembering the one year anniversary of the time that we learned that our Dad, Richard Darr, was dying. They found cancer in him, which launched a slow descent which accelerated in March, and in a flash, he was gone.

But he was 84 years old. And the only time, in my memory, that I will ever remember him as "sick," will be the last ten days of his life. He lived almost a generation beyond 70. His father made it to close to 70, as did his mother. 

But he was strong and made it to 80. He was even stronger and made it to 84. And finally, died . . . in a way that kept him cheerful up to the end; that enabled us all to say our goodbyes . . . the way that good men leave us. Quietly. With dignity.

Psalm 90 closes with the words of advice: to number our days, and apply our hearts to wisdom. Not to money. Not to fame. Not to education. Not even to social justice. But to wisdom. And wisdom is valuable because it is rare. It does not reside on Wall Street. Not on Main Street. Not in the Dean's office. Not in the laboratory. Not in the classroom. Not on the stage. Not on the screen. Not even in the pulpit.

Wisdom is rare.

And chances are you are not following it, not really. Not with all your passion, all your certainty, all your intelligence, all your outrage and indignation. No . . . those qualities are evidence that you are probably lacking wisdom. 

So search for wisdom. It takes a lifetime.