Today I am growing older. I write this on my birthday, a square on the calendar that reminds us in poignant fashion that time marches on.

I don’t feel older. I can’t even see it when I look in the mirror. Honestly, I can’t. But, when I look at photographs of “then and now,” I see it. I’m getting older.

And so, I ask myself today: Does that mean I’m getting wiser? Have I learned any lessons along the way that help me make more sense of life here and now? Have I assessed and absorbed, or do I settle for just numbly sleepwalking my way through it all?

As Jesus journeyed toward Jerusalem and the final chapter of his earthly life, he encountered all sorts of people who asked him all sorts of questions. Among them was a young scribe (an interpreter of The Law) who asked: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” You may define that phrase (“eternal life”) as you choose. In all likelihood, in this specific passage, the scribe simply meant “authentic” life, life worth the living.

In any event, Jesus answered him with one of his most famous quotations. “You shall love the Lord your God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, AND you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That single text could be the basis for years’ worth of blogs. For now, I want to make it the basis just of this one.

Love, according to Christ, is a matter of the heart (kind of like the line from Jerry McGuire: “You had me at hello”). “Heart And Soul”… “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” … “Heartbreak Hotel” … “You Gotta Have Heart.” Love is a matter of a feeling so deep that it often transcends speech and can only be sung. But, Jesus went further than that and described love as a matter of the soul. In New Testament thought, “soul” = “essence.” Not just thoughts. Not just words. Not just songs. But, said Jesus, do we love and honor God with our essence, with all that we have and are?

That’s what happened today. The great blizzard of 2010 caused me to be “snowed in.” Actually, it wasn’t (a great blizzard), and I wasn’t (snowed in). Instead, it was a beautiful snow, about the same as the one we had back in December, and I chose to stay home and work from here.

I did work, by the way. I spent most of the day researching and writing a lot of this coming Sunday’s sermon. Plus, I answered e-mails, wrote blogs, and chatted on the phone with other Collegiate clergy and Corporation staff. Even so, I did it leisurely – in jeans and a sweatshirt – without shaving or putting on a tie – and with a bowl of chili and glasses of milk on my desk. Somehow, it made work feel less like what it is,

I didn’t venture out today. No need to. Sometimes staying in is almost medicinal. But, I recalled something I witnessed in the last big snow.

A couple of weeks ago I struggled through the Duke-Georgia Tech basketball game. We weren’t supposed to lose. However, apparently Georgia Tech didn’t know that, so we lost. They played a great game. We didn’t. At the close of the game, Page looked at me and said: “So, how do you feel?” I simply answered: “It’s a long season.”

One of the things I’ve learned as a basketball fan is that a whole season is never determined by a single game. One of the years when we won the national title, a couple weeks earlier we had lost the ACC Tournament championship by 24 points. One game does not decide a season.

So, why this meandering about basketball – especially when most who read this couldn’t care less whether or not my alma mater is having a good year? I write this simply because it reminds me of a greater lesson about life. Life is, we hope, a long season … and one event, one failure, one tragedy, one broken relationship, one lost job, one illness, one unwise decision does not determine the outcome of the season. In fact, any good coach will tell you his or her athletes often learn more from their losses than from their victories. So it is in life. Sometimes the pains we experience, when intelligently processed, lead to joys or victories we would never have known otherwise.

“All good things come to an end.” Someone quoted that old cliché to me recently. And, when reflecting on it, I found myself asking, “Why?”

The good dessert I had last night ended, to be sure, but the effect on my body continues. Okay, that example probably needs a little work. Let’s think about this a different way.

The goodnight kiss you got at the end of your first prom ends. But, the memory remains forever – and with it, perhaps, a sense of romance and hope and the mystery of the child-becoming-more-than-child.

The English or History or Philosophy class at college ends, but the knowledge acquired there lives with you and enriches your life forever.

I love coming to church. I really do. The music is great. The sanctuary is beautiful. The environment is warm and accepting. The people are gracious and embracing. And, on top of all that, there’s the food! I mean, talk about win/win.

In all seriousness, I’ve always loved going to church. I grew up in a home where both parents taught Sunday School. My Dad served in virtually every elected capacity in the life of the congregation. He was also what’s called a “Certified Lay Speaker.” In Methodism, those are the women or men who go out to small churches that have no staff and speak on Sunday mornings when their preacher has vacation or the flu. When we were not going to those places, we were always in the third pew on the left at First Methodist Church in Asheboro, NC. Sunday nights, I went to Youth. Wednesday nights we went the Mid-Week Worship. My parents had a rule when I was a kid: If I were too sick to be at church on Sunday morning, I was too sick to do anything else enjoyable the rest of the day.

Our house was on the same street as the parsonage. My Mom was a great cook, so the Minister frequently seemed to materialize about dinner time. I kid you not. We even had one preacher who would come by every Sunday night, ask my Mom for pound cake and ice cream with a splash of chocolate sauce, and then would make both my parents promise not to tell his health-conscious wife. Then he would sit with my Dad and discuss church issues, visions, and dreams. I would sit in a corner pretending to do homework but instead eavesdropping on a conversation that seemed to have one foot in Heaven. I loved church. I still do.