life – Page 2 – sethlewis.ie

Three Castle Head

On a sunny day in the Spring, we pulled the car into a gravel parking area at the end of a remote peninsula in Ireland. The sea shimmered in the light beyond the deep green fields lined and dotted with grey rock walls and white sheep. We opened the gate and crossed a field, and then another, and another, carefully following the faint paths worn by the feet of those who had come here before us. Sometimes we had to make a choice—it seems not all of our predecessors had gone the same way. Or did hooves make one trail, and feet another? Eventually the grassy fields gave way to rocky hills, and we scrambled up one side and down the other where the grass and mud and boulders and the sound of the sea all blend together into a kind of otherworldly magic and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t looking at an illustration of the Wild Lands of Narnia—I was in the real, tangible, wild of the actual world.

Easter Isn’t Over

Easter Sunday was a few days ago now, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. The effects of what we celebrated last Sunday continue to grow, slowly, like the buds of spring continue to open all around us and the fresh green continues to deepen into maturity and the apple blossoms transform themselves, somehow, into delicious fruit. Jesus said, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). Then he died—for us. Now, 2,000 years later, his resurrection is still bearing fruit—transforming the cold, dead hearts of sinful, proud, selfish people who trust in his forgiveness and salvation into living, loving, new creations—a transformation that is every bit as glorious and surprising as the growth of a tiny, dull little sunflower seed into a towering, thriving wonder of nature. This is how God works. He does nothing by half-measures. He doesn’t ease off once he’s done enough to get by. He goes on, and on, and on—working wonders far beyond anything we could ask or imagine, and glories no mind has conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9). That’s why, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul uses seeds as an illustration of the resurrection of God’s people:

A Poem About Life

I sat down to write a poem about life
The roof is leaking.
I began to think about the happy and
The dryer’s squeaking.

I got up and sat again and thought
Of mysteries
And things I ought
To have done yesterday.

Life is full of joy and
I’d better fold the clothes.
How it goes so fast
Nobody knows.

Again, it’s full of joy and
Interruption
Moments of construction
Of this messy
Happy gift of

What was I saying?
Oh yes the gift I love—

Life

The Gardener

When we moved in to our house, the garden was undeveloped. It was a small patch of grass, with a shed. And those things are still there, but they’ve been joined now by a row of roses at the back, with jasmine and passion flowers growing against the wall. Blueberry bushes bloom on one side, with strawberries and grapes beside them. On the other side is an apple tree, a plum tree, and a collection of pots growing a collection of colourful flowers that Jessica cuts and gives away or brings inside for us to enjoy. This year, we’re expanding our window boxes to hold even more flowers. As I write today there are rows of seedlings on the back stoop, reaching up and acclimatising, being prepared for planting—because none of this growth happens overnight. We’ve lived here seven years now, and the progress has been slow. It is measured in months and seasons and years, not hours and days. It was my wife, Jessica, who saw what our undeveloped little plot could become and patiently worked over the years to bring that vision to life. As I go outside to look at the buds forming and opening this spring, I see the fruit of her careful attention and I rise up and bless her for bringing such abundance and beauty to our home.

God Doesn’t Work For Me

“I’m glad you found something that works for you.”

He said it kindly, genuinely happy for me to have found meaning and purpose in my beliefs about God. I said, “Whether or not my beliefs work for me is not the point. I just want to believe what’s true, and live accordingly. I want to know what God is really like—not what I want him to be. My opinion about you doesn’t determine who you really are, and my opinion about God certainly doesn’t change who he is.” God is himself. He is not obligated to work for me—as if my own little self were the centre of all things—he is the centre, and the reason I work at all is because of him. So I’d much rather live in the light of reality, even if it makes me squint, than live in the shadows of my own comfortable delusions.

An Elegy For Our Fireplace

When my father built a home for our family in the hills of Alabama he put a large wood stove in the very centre. A good fire in that stove could heat the entire house, upstairs and down, for most of the night. I grew up splitting logs and carrying them in, building fires and learning to finesse small sparks into roaring warmth. They say firewood warms you twice, and it’s true—first when you cut it, and again when you burn it. The sound of our fire sucking air through the stove vents like breath, the crackling wood, the reassuring smoke from the chimney as I headed in from the winter cold—all are essential pieces of my childhood, baked into my soul by the power of the flames.

How To Avoid A Midlife Crisis (an open letter to twenty-somethings)

Dear young adult,

I know you’re not thinking about having a midlife crisis right now. I know the concept feels far away and foreign, the domain of grumpy gen-Xers and geriatric millennials who drink too much coffee and still complain about being tired all the time. I know you’re probably tired of people telling you to enjoy your stage of life because it all goes so fast. You might not believe me, but the reason almost everyone says this when they reach a certain age is because stages of life actually do go quickly. In fact I can prophecy with confidence that you’ll be saying the something similar in about twenty years time, to the tolerant nods of your juniors. Twenty years probably feels like an eternity to you right now. I get it. But eventually the speed of life catches up with you like a marathon runner who loses sight of the starting line and suddenly realises that the impossibly-distant finish line is actually real and not so distant after all. The difference is that a marathon runner wants to reach the finish line, whereas in life most people don’t. Thus, the midlife crisis. And apparently, I’m due for one. I’ve slept through enough nights and celebrated enough birthdays to qualify for such things, even though no one can tell me what the true mid-point of my life is with any degree of certainty. The specifics don’t matter. My life is clearly passing by, and I’ve reached the stage where this fact can no longer be hidden or ignored. This is the driving force of the midlife crisis—the sudden intrusion of truths we like to push away for as long as possible. At some point they come in anyway, and make themselves at home.

Wanting What I Already Have

There are strings of lights and stacks of chocolates growing in the shops, and the annual question is already hanging in the air: what do you want for Christmas? Mind you, the answer is meant to be something that fits neatly inside of wrapping paper, under a tree or in a stocking. ’Tis the season to assess what we all have and (more specifically) don’t have so that we can give each other good gifts that are actually wanted. I’m all for it. Social pressure to think about other people’s desires and happiness is a good thing, and if other people are thinking about my desires as well, that’s not bad. But as we all think hard about what everyone wants and doesn’t have yet, I’d like us to pause for a moment and remember a truth that can easily get lost in the flurry of festivities: it is possible to want what you already have.

A Personal Update (With A Book Update, Too)

I woke up the other day thinking about the list of normal things I was going to do that day, which is not unusual. But it struck me that I’ve been waking up like that for years and years, and the list of normal things I’ve thought about has changed dramatically. For example, recently I’ve been taking our oldest child out to practice driving. This is normal now, but it wasn’t a year ago, and it’s a sign that our family is entering another new and different kind of normal. Next year our youngest will join her brothers in secondary school and our normal will change again.

Assisted Suicide And The Meaning Of Life

Our representatives in Dublin are voting this evening on whether to approve recommendations for assisted suicide in Ireland. This is only an indicative vote, a first step towards changing our laws, but it is a step that will pave the way for official legislation to be brought forward in the future. The argument in favour of this change is usually framed in the language of compassion and choice—that those who are suffering greatly should be able to end their suffering—and their lives—on their own terms. There are, however, many significant concerns raised in the debate as well. For example, there is the unspoken (or perhaps spoken) pressure to die that allowing this option places on good-hearted people who hate to be a burden on others. Is that really a free choice? Or consider the obvious cost-cutting incentive that assisted suicide gives the health service to end lives rather than provide expensive palliative care. Does that really promote compassion? These concerns are reason enough to oppose assisted suicide, especially in light of the heartbreaking evidence from countries who have already started down this road. But I have another more fundamental objection. I know that the one great benefit and argument for assisted suicide is that it ends suffering. This is true enough. The trouble is that it ends suffering not by treating or managing it, but rather by ending the sufferer. In doing so, assisted suicide creates a new category for our culture—a category of human life that society agrees is simply not worth living.