“FALLING UP”
3rd in a 3 part series
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
– Romans 12:1-2
First… there was ‘the fall.’ We all get to deal with the outcome. Then there was ‘after the fall’ with each generation and each person facing the difficult realities of life. Perhaps this is a gift… offering perspective and defining what is good for me and good for you and good for all of us… compared to what we think it should be or longing for what we thought we had. Perhaps not.
Yet, once a person understands there’s more to life than just the life the world seems to want to bestow… that’s when each of us… or any of us… but maybe not all of us experience a moment of what can be called… ‘falling up’… that second half of life when we get older and begin to see things differently… but only because we understood how we saw life before.
Grace is involved. Time is mixed in. Trophies are removed from the mantle and those times we found ourselves in that deep dark hole with no hope of getting out are all owned deep in our souls as they, too, are part of the deal.
Wisdom surfaces. Goals shift. Priorities are revised. People call us ‘elders’ whether we like it or not… as a transformation arrives with our demeanor and behavior and attitudes toward oneself as well as others gets renegotiated.
Confused? Well… that’s ok… maybe you’re not there yet and you have some ‘falling up’ yet to do… but please allow me to put this in a personal perspective.
I spent forty years as a parish pastor. It wasn’t the most important thing in my life as I held being an eldest son and good brother and faithful husband and loving father to be the more important details of my whole self… but I spent a lot of time not being those things carrying my pastor’s toolbox… starting in 1981 … one that was pretty empty at first and as a life-long learner continued to fill it with the tools necessary to be a good, faithful, future-oriented, credible servant of God in my denomination… respected by my peers, my bishop… and for the most part appreciated by the people in the congregations I served.
Then I retired. Two-thirds of my life put in boxes with more living to do… as I still want to be that eldest son and good brother and faithful husband and loving father… and now an affirming and blessed grandfather… but in a culture where one’s worth and station is dictated by the work one does… that work had come to a screeching halt… and when people ask me… ‘how’s retirement going?’… I tell them… ‘it’s great… I’m getting to do all kinds of things that I was never able to do because I was working!’
I’m not busier now than I used to be… just busy doing the things I like to do and want to do… and while doing that… I still carry that toolbox in my heart and head… because as a life-long learner… I’ve always recognized there’s room to add in more good stuff. Faith matters!
I went to Rome and Greece earlier this month with my wife. We’re ‘falling up’ together and fleshing out our second half of life. I was captured by the really old stuff there… the Coliseum… the Parthenon, and clay jars from 1300 B.C. being reminded that nothing lasts forever… except the grace and love of God which lifts us from a first life to a second one… one more meaningful as a result of the measure put into the first… and I hope your ‘falling up’ is as good as can be!
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
