Last Saturday, I went to the see the Yankees play the Nationals in a spring training game close to where I live. I went with my soon to be eighty-nine year old grandfather and as we walked up to the stadium, I tried to hold the tears back.
My grandfather took me to my very first baseball game when I was ten years old or so. It was my first trip to New York City and what I remember is that we sat next to the visitor’s bullpen and even though I was a Yankees fan, I was thrilled to see White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk up close.
That was twenty-five years ago. It was a lifetime ago, or at the very least, a generation ago. The years have flown by with such speed that the events of my childhood sometimes feel like they happened to someone else.
Last week, I attended my first Ash Wednesday service in an Episcopal Church. Growing up Catholic, I don’t think I ever paid too much attention to Lent except that Lent meant fish fries at St. Paul’s on Fridays and that for some reason, St. Paul’s could never debone their fish properly.
So far, Lent in the Episcopal Church has seemed somewhat sad and muted. Anything shiny and gold plated has been replaced by simple wood. There are no flowers on the altar. There is a bit of heaviness to the air, solemnness, so that after the Ash Wednesday service in particular, it seemed wrong to even speak to someone in the church after the service had ended.
And yet, here and there, I find elements of joy, of impending joy. For these are the days leading to Easter and Easter is the day of God’s final triumph when Jesus rose from the dead.
As solemn an occasion as Ash Wednesday was, I found myself breathing easier as we read Psalm 103, in particular verses 14-17. “For he himself knows whereof we are made, he remembers that we are but dust. Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower in the field; when the wind goes over it, it is gone, and its place shall know it no more. But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever.”
At first glance, these words can seem depressing. We are dust. Our lives are as fragile and quick as a flower in the field. What we perceive as years and decades, are mere nanoseconds in the history of the world.
But I see these verses somewhat differently. First I love that we are compared to flowers, because flowers are beautiful and those flowers that seem to bloom overnight, always make me catch my breath.
And secondly, keep in mind that the most important comparison the author makes is to God. Our lives are lived in a breath.
But God’s love is forever.
God’s love for us endures forever.
And so two baseball games, twenty-five years apart are in and of themselves rather meaningless, except when they bookend God’s gift to me of a grandfather’s love.
