flood and flame

I love summer. I grew up spending most of my summers at the pool. When I was 5, I joined a swim team. That was in 1979. Almost every year since then I have been involved with the sport of swimming in some way, whether it was as an athlete, coach, or ref.
For years my hair was white, with a lovely hint of green thanks to the chlorine. When I was in high school I started lifeguarding. A typical summer day looked like this:

5:30 -7:30: Long course swim practice for my club team.
8:00-10:00 Coach the neighborhood recreation league swim team.
10:00-11:30 Private swim lessons
12:00-6:00 Lifeguard at the public pool
7:00-9:00 Lifeguard private parties at the pool.

I am convinced that I have irreparable damage to my skin from the sun and chlorine, but I was in shape and looking good at the time! Or at least I thought I looked good. I may have been a little full of myself at 16.

These days I'm a bit overweight and have a nice tan line halfway up my arm. The rest of me looks a little like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings. My muscles are about as toned as a Jell-O. I was at the pool yesterday with some of the youth for our first Mission Monday. I looked around at the young lifeguards and was a little envious. Here they stood all in shape and tanned, hanging out at the pool, without a real care in the world. I used to be like that.

Sometimes I long for “yesterday” wishing I could have those days back. Our society does the same thing. We glamorize “the good ol’ days” and people spend billions of dollars each year to stay young and cool. I saw a woman yesterday that was at least 60, wearing a bathing suite that was WAY to small, tattoos all over, and multiple piercings in interesting places. She was desperately trying to hang on to her youth that had slipped away back when the Elvis was skinny.

On the other side of the coin, it’s just as easy to worry and dream about the future as it is to obsess over the past. When I was a student I can remember thinking in middle school, “I can't wait until high school.” As a freshman, it was “I can't wait till I'm a sophomore.” Then it became dreaming about college, and how much better life will be then. After college, I imagined being married and having a job. Now dream about the day when I finish seminary and don’t have to go to class anymore!

Do you folks ever do that? Dream about the future, or long for the past? I think everybody does it to some extent. But ya’ know what? It’s a waste of time. God wants us to live in the present moment, not worrying about the future or dreaming of the past.

Look at scripture. In a passage from Luke we see this: "He (Jesus) said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father. “Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.""

In other words, let the past be the past. If we dwell on things that already happened, it will suck the joy right out of the present moment. When we focus on the way things were, we miss the joy of what is going on now and the mission that God has for us today.

The same is true of dreaming or worrying about the future. This is what Jesus says in Matthew 6: 33-34: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Carpe diem is the Latin phrase from a poem by Horace that means seize the day. That is the spirit of the scriptures above. If we live our life looking back or looking forward, we miss the life that is happening right here and right now. And that is the secret to embracing and living the life that God has for us. Forget the past, because it is over. Have faith that God is taking care of the future. Seize the day that you are living now, live it for God, and enjoy the life Christ gave you!

As I was bemoaning my white belly at the pool, Luke ran up to me shouting "Daa!!" (Which I'm pretty sure meant "Dad".) He reached up for me to hold him, and then buried his face in my neck. Jack was splashing water with a friend and Sam was asking me to go race him down the water slide. I looked at Brandie and was struck by how pretty she is. Suddenly, my glistening white gut didn't seem to matter. I'd trade my old skinny, tanned, body and sun bleached blonde hair any day for what I have now. Carpe diem.