Decaying, but not Discouraged

Me, circa 1979

me, 2016, only 37 years later

,

I went to a movie with two friends from my college days last night. Apropos of nothing, except that he reflects cinematically on humanity's existential state, as I suppose I am about to do, Woody Allen's latest, Cafe Society, was the movie of the evening.

As we drove to the theatre, I mentioned that this week I had again reconnected with some friends I had not seen in over a quarter of a century. The last time was in May to June, when I visited New York and met up with one of my earliest friends, a person born on exactly the same day as I was. I noted that in both cases, I had an image of the individuals that comported with the last time I saw them, that is, when we were all young. It was a bit of an adjustment to see these folks as they are now, and I am guessing for them to see me. None of us is what we were then--just starting out in adult life-Well, me,  I am so terribly overweight these days (eating is my drug), that I know there was commentary on that aspect of the years' passing (although I never was svelte)as well there should be but I'd like to pretend otherwise.  We most certainly were not the fresh faced youth of a quarter of a century ago. That was inevitable  And yet, ironically perhaps, I felt as if, and I think they felt as if, no time had passed at all, in terms of our experience of the comfortableness of our interactions.

One of my long time friends jolted me as I concluded the tale of my experience.  First he demanded (it felt like a demand, though perhaps it was not) to know whether I thought we looked as good as we used to--I had little time to consider it, though I knew the correct answer was "no" (and although I was never happy with my appearance at any stage of my life), and then he added that we were all "decaying".

Decaying? He said it with a tone of irrevocable doom. I felt annoyance. I felt rebellion. I thought, "Speak for yourself!" I am not decaying! Fat I might be, but otherwise I feel pretty good, and fairly capable. And you might think we might look bad but maybe that's not a foregone conclusion I hope.

And then I realized that it was true. I am getting older and with that age comes the inevitable decay of the flesh. He has advised me in the past he is an ex-Catholic. What that means in terms of his overall spiritual views, I cannot say, other than my impression he has the view that we live and die and that there is nothing beyond that death. I have made it a practise not to proselytize. Anyone who knows me knows of my faith. Perhaps I shall answer at judgment for not being more assertive, but I am what I am. I will not force another to believe what must come from personal assent.

So anything I say from here comes from my personal assent and is not likely to be embraced by anyone for whom the idea of God's salvation is a myth.

Adam and Eve would not have "decayed" had they accepted and followed the one rule of Paradise. And thus, we their descendants would not have faced that consequence. I suppose we are fortunate if all that happens to us is to decay, to wear out. That of course was not what happened to the Son of God. He never got past the age of 33, a robust time of life, because he accepted a violent death at the hands of His creatures so that those of us who live long enough to decay, and everyone else not so fortunate to live an average span, from the aborted fetus, to the mugged and murdered apartment dweller, might transcend death and be resurrected as our best selves, body and spirit.

So to a believer, and belief is constantly a battle for most of us, except for the most pure of saints, of which I do not count myself, decay is a temporary earthly reality. And even on earth, there is evidence that the decay is not permanent. What has decayed and died in Fall is reborn and fresh in the Spring.

The decay is part of the journey through that suffering which has been transformed through the obedience of the New Adam, Christ, from useless and final, to meaningful and ephemeral, if each of us chooses obedience and trust over contempt of God and cynicism. We are passing along with the world, but that is not what we were meant for.

Oh, it is hard, very hard, not to look at ourselves, with our wrinkled faces and creaking limbs and see beyond it to Life Everlasting. But wouldn't you prefer that I am right, that scores of theologians with far more perspicacious minds are right?

Maybe because in the last few years I have been around a great deal of elderly and sick people, I have come less to fear the breaking down of the body. Somehow, in their eyes and in the stories of their lives I have seen the spark of the immortality promised to us if we do not lose faith, if we do not become discouraged.

Here we are decayed. There, in Paradise, we shall be transfigured. I am going with that.