Beginnings and Endings

First comes birth’s celebrated arrival and in the end, death’s final salute, the bookends of life as we know it.

Hellos and goodbyes. First love and last love. Growing up and growing old. Coming into the world and leaving it. 
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From beginning to end, we live our lives through stories.
 
From first breath to our last, we weave the part of life’s tapestry that is our own. One part fact and two parts imagination, we create revelations and remembrances about who we are and who we were.
 
Choices made and not made provide texture and color to stories we live, moments of courage and integrity, and moments of remorse. Leading to a point of decision, do we keep quiet or speak, walk away or step up?
 
Sometimes we hope no one noticed.
 
Either way, we remember.
 
Small and big regrets we try to bury are resurrected in old age. They find us even when we try to hide them.
           
The story is the thing. Lessons are embedded in the byways and tall weeds of our life’s journey more often than on the main road. And the truth of the matter often slips in through the back door, sneaking up from behind and surprising us with delight, horror or sometimes, both at once.
 
Do we learn our life lessons? Do we learn from suffering we have given and suffering we have received?
 
Stories inform us about who we are and who we may become, reminding us of what we have found . . . and what we have lost.
 
Embodying the best and worst of us, our fears and prejudices as well as our hopes and acts of kindness.
 
Stories feed our imagination, illuminating timeless truths and sometimes, timeless lies.
 
Like those who have come before us, we are both heroes and villains.
 
In our busy-bee world, we do more buzzing than pollinating.
 
Meaning is more about being in time than being on time.
 
 
There is transparency on the bridge of experience between what we learn and how we live out the story that is us.
 
We become immersed in stories we share, filling us with wonder, even with questions that can never be fully answered.
 
Questions like "what is life really about?”, “what is my purpose?” and "what does it mean to be a decent and moral person?"
 
Growing older, we wrestle with what we should do with the ‘least of those' who cross our paths and come into our lives.
 
We wrestle with where justice meets mercy.
 
We live our questions more than answer them.
 
We wait to see what tomorrow brings, what lies around the bend in the road we travel. Alone or with others, all part of creation’s revelation, a story we belong to.