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Time Goes By
This, believe it of now, is the last month of my young life. Statistically speaking, I have been "elderly" for the last five years. From the end of this month I fall into the category of "aged". This I do not believe, I regret to say that some of those young with whom I shared my schooldays have, to be brutally frank, turned into Victor Meldrews but I have retained my sparkle and my joie de vivre and do not, I convince myself, look a day over forty-five. Make that forty.
What reassures me even more is the number of people who ask me if I have settled here, or if I am considering leaving this parish. You jest. Do you know how old I really am? Even if I wanted to go elsewhere, there is nobody who would take an old lag like me. "Past his sell-by date" is a phrase which comes too readily to the lips of my detractors. Churches nowadays (as ever) want young men with sound minds in healthy bodies, not grizzled old granddads like me.
One of the advantages of being a decrepit old reprobate is that I have nothing to lose. Any chances of promotion faded into obscurity years ago, when I refused to toe the episcopal line. Moving to one of the fabled "better" parishes (they don't exist in real life) is quite out of the question at my age and with my reputation for insubordination. Another bonus is that I have now, I hope, seen almost everything. I have shared in joys and sorrows, seen tragedy and jubilation, and traversed the wide spectrum of human emotions in more ways than I would openly admit. In short, I have "been there, done that."
That kind of thing is something which I have always admired about Jesus. As we continue with the Easter season we can see that he shared all the trials and tribulations which beset us. We cannot ourselves expect to understand the pains and sorrows of this world unless we have experienced them. Jesus did just that. He also enjoyed genuine human relationships with family, friends and acquaintances. And he bestowed upon his followers the incomparable joy of meeting him again at the resurrection. There is something comforting about a God who sends his only Son to share our lives and our feelings and who can be said to have "been there, done that".
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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