It’s Valentine’s Day, and Ash Wednesday. I’m sitting in the waiting room of my urologist, watching an endless procession of old men come and go.
I’m one of them: the brotherhood of enlarged prostates and the thousand other natural shocks geezer flesh is heir to. We wait to offer up the obligatory urine samples, followed by the obligatory close encounters of the digital kind with our doctors.
Erich Bridges
I’m not complaining. I’m thankful for relatively good health and decent medical care at an affordable price, which countless others lack. But as the years roll by, the endless visits to medical specialists, the endless pharmacy trips, the inexorable decline of the body give one pause.
The end is coming. My younger self never thought about that. My older self thinks about it regularly.
Lent is a good time to reflect upon approaching death — both Christ’s and our own. The ashes on our foreheads remind us where we come from and where we are returning. We should think on that for a time before rushing on to the hope of the Resurrection.
Morbid? Hardly. The modern world — the rich part of it, at least — has been so successful in warding off death that it tries to pretend mortality doesn’t exist. Our ancestors didn’t have that foolish luxury. Death hovered over them daily in the form of incurable disease, hunger and violence. But they had one advantage: More of them actually believed this world is only the beginning and we have an invitation to eternity with a merciful God — if we repent and believe.
“The modern world — the rich part of it, at least — has been so successful in warding off death that it tries to pretend mortality doesn’t exist.”
Repentance is the other great purpose of Lent. We should not only smear ashes on our foreheads but sit in them with sackcloth, like the Israelites of old. We have sinned against God and one another. That calls for more than giving up chocolate for 40 days. Do we even deserve the short life we are given, the way we live it?
My wife died seven years ago this month. She was the kindest, most faithful person I have ever known. Do I regret the many times I failed to love her the way she loved me during our 33 years together? Hell, yes. Every day. I would give anything — anything — to have a do-over, to be more patient, more considerate, more compassionate, more attentive to her. Too late.
Regret is pointless, some say; you can’t change the past. On the contrary, regret is a useful form of repentance, if it changes us. I beg forgiveness from God for my selfishness, unkindness and indifference toward others. I ask God to change me, because I can’t change myself without his transforming power.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart,” David wrote. “Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”
The best Valentine I can give the world with the time I have left is to cease my hurtful ways and replace them with love. God help me to do so.
Erich Bridges, a Baptist journalist for more than 40 years, has covered international stories and trends in many countries. He lives in Richmond, Va.