Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong. And most of these are emptiness and pain. They pass swiftly and we are gone (Psalm 90:10).
Those familiar words from the psalter, recited regularly for a lifetime in the ordinary course of the Divine Office, take on a special salience on one's birthday - especially when one is in his late 70s, on a day like today when I celebrate turning 77.
Frankly, the first feeling I have as I turn 77 is simply gratitude - gratitude at having lived this long, at being still around after so many years and so many experiences and so much that has happened both to me and to the world that no one would have anticipated on this date back in 1948.
It is good to be alive, in tolerably decent health, much slowed down but nowhere near stopped. It is good to remember the people I have known, the places I have been, the things I have done - and also the opportunities missed and other inevitable regrets. (No honestly examined life is without its regrets.)
Today, it feels good to reflect on where I have been, not mainly for nostalgia or regret, but for where I am going in whatever time may yet be given me.
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