ALPHA & OMEGA

YOU KNOW HOW WHEN YOU’RE BORN, everything that happens is your FIRST? First smile, first word, first tooth, first step…

Malachi (as in it’s Me Against The Grand-Girls; that Malachi) just had his first haircut. It’s one of those FIRSTS that seems to cause a giant step in Growing Up. Like the first day of school, first sleepover, first dance, first kiss…

All of this is a part of what I understand to be a “coming-of-age”. Some say that coming-of-age means reaching a certain milestone like getting a driver’s license, graduating from high school, being able to vote, etc. Some say it defines the process of maturity, particularly emotional maturity.

When does it end? Is there a point where we can say, “I’ve come of age!” I don’t know. Some seem to remain eternally toddler-like, spoiled brats—you know the ones that people judge as needing to grow up. Some just seem to be blessed with a youthful curiosity, and sense of wonder.

Could it be that at some point our LASTS outnumber our FIRSTS? Is that a sign that we have come-of-age? Our last day of school, our last child to leave the nest, our last day on the job, our last time to drive a car… Stopping now. This could get morbid in a hurry. But, maybe not.

Several years ago, September 2013, to be exact, I started this blog called About Pops . It was a part of a process in my life that I came to call my “second-coming-of-age”, because I’ve discovered this life is loaded with opportunities for FIRSTS and do-overs.

My Amazing-Missus and I have taken adventures in our Airstream Travel Trailer I never thought we would have. Being a Pops is fraught with FIRSTS, because we get to celebrate all of those with each of our grands. I was able to reconnect with a friend from high school days, which may not sound like a big deal, but it was for me. Somehow I found myself becoming a part of a group of young artists in New York City and then around the world—a group called International Arts Movement. I even got to serve on their board which meant making numerous trips to NYC, and then helping cultivate seeds of that arts movement back here in OKC.

So, I’m seeking FIRSTS and finding new joy in the repetitive things of life: road trips to Shawnee and Alva, Seinfeld reruns, eating “Chinese” food with Mom & Dad, going to work. When I kiss my Amazing-Missus goodnight when I go to bed and she settles in to watch the ten o’clock news, I want to do it with the passion of my 20 year-old self. Well… maybe not that passionate (there was a good deal of lust in that passion). You get the idea.

Pretend your opening a fortune cookie and inside the little paper says, “Go do something you’ve done a thousand times and enjoy it like it was the FIRST.”

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy