EVERY DAY IS FRIDAY

The other day I was having a conversation with my sister when we got around to talking about how fast time goes these days especially as we get older. She reminded me that our Mom, as she was growing older (and was almost 97 when she died) used to say that “Every day is Friday” because, for her, it seemed that she just put out the garbage yesterday. I can relate even if every day is not Friday. But it comes close!

Our conversation to that point was centered around my relating about my doing some supply work in two parishes back in West Virginia, one of which I had served forty years ago. The Senior Warden of Olde St. John’s had contacted me about doing some supply work as their priest had just retired and they needed someone to celebrate the Eucharist until the Bishop could help them find a permanent replacement.

When Lori, the Senior Warden, called me, she introduced herself and told me that she was 12 when saw each other last and she was now 48 with grown children. When I went to celebrate, the lay reader was a young man, now in his late thirties, whom I had baptized and was now married with two little ones of his own. My acolyte at Christ Church that Sunday was the son of an acolyte who was an acolyte for me back then.

To say that times flies and that it seems to fly faster as we grow older is obvious but it is also the truth. And we cannot slow it down. Our youngest and her husband are going to Hawaii for a belated honeymoon and Arlena and I will have the privilege to baby sit Carter who is 13 months old. A friend of Arlena’s promised to pray for the kids while they were in Hawaii. Arlena told her to pray for us instead. We’ll need it just to keep up with the little guy.

The honeymoon will give them lasting memories as will our time with Carter as have been mine while reconnecting with old-now-much-older former parishioners. As much as the kids have wanted to hurry time the last three or four months, they could not. As much as my peers and I want to slow down those seemingly-endless-it’s-Friday agains, we cannot, nor should we want to.

What we can do and what we are doing is reveling in the memories, giving thanks for them and even having some degree of pride. My old parishioners think I hung the moon and it was wonderful being told that they still remember me and still miss me. That is humbling and rewarding for which I can only give thanks to God that I must have said and done something right even though I know I messed up one many occasions.

What was even more rewarding was seeing Matthew and his family in church and him reading the lessons and having another Matthew carry the processional cross down the aisle as I followed. The Fridays will come even faster as I age but the memories will give joy and pleasure to the days even as they fly by.