Sixty-five trips 'round the Sun: A mere flickering of a celestial neuron does not a life make

I've now completed 65 orbits of this planet around Sol. Not even a blink of the Creator's eye (if the Creator was truly male, female, corporeal or even concerned with "Time.") 

Scripture tells us He (a concession, human pronouns being so limited, after all) does care about those rotations made by his creations, from the so-called pinacle, humankind, to even the smallest sparrow. 

But consider, the Earth, current assumptions purport, has made approximately 4.5 billion-plus (give or take a paltry 500 million) trips around our class G, yellow dwarf star. So, not even the blink of the Deity's eye, this lifetime of mine, in purely statistical terms. . . indeed, if God has something like neurons within His eternal, limitless intelligence, 65 years might be a fraction of one celestial neuron firing (or mis-firing?) 

Too, too much to take in? OK, how about the perspective of mere mortality? 

The World Health Organization says males, on average, live to nearly 84 years of age in Japan (No. 1). In the good old U.S.A., despite having the "best" (and most expensive) health care in the world, it's a shade over 79 (31st on the planet). In Sierra Leone, it's barely 50. 

But how to measure the worth of a lifetime? That has always been the question. My father turns 96 in July, yet he is legally blind, with severe hearing loss, and cognitively disabled. My mother, 90, is in end-stage Alzheimer's. 

So, how does 96, or 90, in such cases compare to that fellow in Sierra Leone who probably still works hard, helps raise his children's children, and has clan and family and village to center him?

When you consider the differences, why measure life in terms of whether an aged American can count (if he or she is indeed able to remember how to count) one or two dozen more trips around Old Sol than our brother in Sierra Leone?

Rather than years, seems to me, we should count each day -- how we have loved, embraced and helped others, whether we stood in awe in a forest clearing, watching the sun shimmer on the limbed canopy above, the breeze teasing the leaves as it cools our wet brows, and as the sun warms us.

One moment like that, my family and friends, is a glimpse of eternity. . . and a humbling reminder of our tiny, however treasured by our Maker, place in it all.

And, if we are blessed to rise again in the morning, begin to count again, if you are so inclined.

But really, every day should begin with this: "Well, this is '1', once more."

Love, work and deeds: Do you 'play for mortal stakes'?

The late Robert B. Parker, who created the literary Boston detective Spenser, entitled one of the series' novels, "Mortal Stakes."

Not the first time, curiosity over a title or phrase or quotation in a Parker book spurred me to investigate further.

This weekend, while reading a collection of Robert Frost poems, there it was:

"Only where need and love are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sake."

I read it several times. It had the feeling of . . . scripture.

The stanza above comes at the conclusion of Frost's recounting his joy of chopping wood -- until two unemployed lumberjacks come down the trail.

Silently, they watch him work . . . and silently, he understands that what he does for joy, they need to do for making a living -- mortal stakes. In the end, their need overcomes his joy; he pays them to finish the work.

This poem ("Two Tramps in Mud Time")  has so touched me that I've posted the above stanza at my work station.

Somehow, it makes me feel much better about starting another week of labor.