One

The celebrations have been duly observed: we had an open house last week, the congregation wore bow ties last Sunday in honor of the first year of my pastorate at Good Samaritan Presbyterian Church.  Today is the actual one year anniversary of my first Sunday in the pulpit here.  Between moving and adjusting, and adapting to a new place, it barely seems like I've blinked and a year has gone by.
Part of the speed is just the phase of life: we're in the midst of raising two school aged kids and things are just hectic.  Older folks tell us, with a bit of warning: it goes by so fast, to which I say "I know," but I don't really know, because you never really understand things until they pass.
I'm going to turn 40 this year, which doesn't really mean much except for messing with my head.  I remember a time when being 40 seemed about as likely as traveling to Jupiter, but here I am.  What that teaches is me is that other ages that seem unlikely are going to be rolling my way, sooner than I expect them.
I have come to see my life in terms of decades, I spent nearly thirty years getting an education, I graduated from Seminary just shy of my 29th birthday, but I would say that I learned a lot more in the ten years that I spent as a pastor in a rural community in Western Pennsylvania than I did in the ten years that I spent in the systems of higher education.  The past ten years have changed me quite a bit, I have learned to be a father and a pastor.  I have learned what grief really is and I have learned to grieve in public; the first thing is inevitable, the second is a rather peculiar skill indeed.
On my thirtieth birthday I didn't want people to make a fuss, but they did anyway.  On my fortieth, I don't think I'll resent the fuss so much, because I have a sense of how important marking the years actually is.  I don't mean that we need a big hullabaloo (hear me Michele), but I understand that birthdays and anniversaries are moments to celebrate, because we are mortal.
Weird.
We celebrate the passage of time, which ultimately can only remind us that we're getting closer to it's end.  It seems to me that those moments where we celebrate are the designated moments for looking back.  The value in designating them as such is so that we can devote more time and energy to looking forward.
Emerson said, "The years teach us much which the days never know."
That is an elegant way of saying what I'm rambling on about.  I think we have been sold the idea of knowledge, but perhaps not so much wisdom.  Wisdom is not just knowing things, wisdom is being able to put those things into use, and understanding the context of what you know, and how one thing affects another.
There has been so much change in the past year, when I think about it too much I get a bit dizzy, but here I am, and here we go, year two.