Time and It's Trappings

I’m sitting once again at a favorite coffee shop of mine, hot chocolate in hand, Christmas music playing from the speakers, considering the last year of my life. Lately I’ve been struck by the abstract nature of time. I know time is passing, I know the green grass has dried up and turned brown, the flies that invaded my house this past summer have finally left, and I will soon (as I did last year and the year before) have to think twice before I write the date on my checks. I know this is happening. I know.

At church yesterday I watched the children run across the wood floors of the old building we meet in, and I was struck at how fast they are growing! Wasn’t she just pregnant? When did that little girl turn in to a teenager? When did that cute baby get out of that stroller and start walking around?! When did this happen? Well, over time. Over these last years.

This reminder of time’s unforgiving consistency is what causes me to consider my life of 2008. A year in which not much has changed from it’s beginning to now. It seems. A year in which I wrote dozens of songs, some of those songs ended up on a couple records, I played dozens of shows, traveled to many places, watched too many hours of television, read some books, got slightly better at playing the piano, met some new people, grew some relationships, and hopefully learned some things. But it seems to be a dud of a year when I consider the children in my life who have done things like learned how to talk, how to walk, or how to eat solid food! Now THOSE are big accomplishments. This is the point in my thought process when I realize how much our culture shapes the way I look at my life. Culture tells me that my worth is found in what I have accomplished, when I know this is not true.

When I sign off of this website, I’ll still be pondering the funny abstraction of time and how it seems to change it’s dimensions as I get older, but I'll stop pondering what I’ve done over the last year because I know my means of measurement are way off. Here is the first verse and chorus of a song called “Trophies” that I wrote recently with my friend Stephen Gause. Seems appropriate.

Trophies

I have nothing to prove
though I know this to be true
still I will try not to lose
this game where worth is found in what we do

fighting for my survival, to earn my place in line
a status and a title, as if that were the prize

Trophies in my hands
fall apart like castles in the sand
it’ll all be washed away
there I’ll stand with nothing left to say
cause your love has sustained me
your love has sustained me