Turning 50
November 29th, 2016
It was a grey and rainy day, the kind of day where the cold seeps into you, the kind of day when you can’t decide whether it would be better if it snowed or if it rained and the fact that it did both just made it all the worse. I moved through the Frankfurt airport avoiding tv screens and newspapers. Trying desperately to distract myself from conversations I bought a big bag of "Allsorts" licorice and dove into reading “Boys in a Boat” until I could pour myself into my seat and withdraw as I traveled deep into the former Soviet Union. 9 hours later I stumbled off the plane grabbed my luggage cleared customs, walked out into the airport and there it was, the reassurance I needed, a man holding a sign with my name on it! I had joked with my wife that if someone was going to kidnap me I would text her a few letters as a signal, at 2:30 in the morning in Kazakhstan, I was too tired to remember and followed him like a lost puppy to the car. It was cold, it has to be right, I mean heading towards the Mongolian steps, visions of yurts and short horses and cold windswept plains was my image and after a few hours of sleep I awoke to this…
As an introvert trying to make sense of the world I could not have been in a better place. Alone with my thoughts I could observe from a far, wander around a city that also seemed to share a longing for meaning as a former capital for many years. There are vestiges of the Soviet Union around every corner and in those quiet moments where I could walk and take pictures and see something so very different I could also find hope in the solitude. And after nearly 48 hours without talking to anyone about the election I found conversation with a German consultant who was working in Canada. I was offered refuge in a country in which I could not communicate and I was given a hug by someone I did not know but knew I needed one.
When I returned to the USA I had to face one more difficult task and that was to own up to the fact that I was going to turn 50. The day was arriving no matter how ready I was for it. I wasn’t really prepared for the party or the things that would be said and I worked as hard as an introvert can to get in a space of mind to be the center of attention. There were moments I longed to be back in Kazakhstan, unknown and silent. But it was something that was said to me, about me, that I want to offer to you this morning. My son Andrew offered that St Augustine conceptualized love as weight and wrote,
“My love is my weight, because of it I move”.
And it is not lost on many of you who know him that at one time many of us did not know if he would ever take his potential as a student more seriously than he did his social life. In those moments as I was being celebrated I realized that each of my children have been nurtured and challenged in this community, that each of them move because of their weight, because of the love they have understood from their parents, their friends and their teachers. As an engineer and a lover of numbers and black and white, I too found the image of my love being my weight and being my reason to move inspiring. I have found it important as I try to make sense of the world around me, as I realize love and inspiration in the actions of so many of the people in my life, I too know I am blessed.
The bleakness of my mood that overwhelmed me in my travels before break has been replaced by a movement in my heart and in my mind. I have been buoyed by reading, by connecting with people through their thoughtful words and writing, not by tweets and nonsensical satire but by feeling through words that can only be realized by careful thoughtful reading. Most recently I’ve been working through 16 essays from the New Yorker from writers of all walks. And I’ll leave you with this one thought from John Chiang. Chiang was a budget official in California that stood up to a decision he did not agree with, I’ll let you read the article to find out the background but Chaing was quoted in the piece by Evan Osnos to have said when asked why stood against a decision made by the governor.
“ At times, we will prevail; at times we will fail. But to stand and watch idly and do nothing—I think people will regret if things go along and they didn’t offer up their very best.”
So this morning, I am moved by my weight, for this community, this state and this nation. I am moved to think more deeply about the divides that are apparent in a way I never knew existed, I am moved to consider my actions and my words in ways I never felt I needed to do, and I am moved to ask myself how can the weight that is my love move me to action. For me, it is the first time in my life that I am uneasy about the future and at 50 I know that I too cannot sit idly by, I need to offer up my very best.