Who Do You Want to Become?
Facing another year of finitude
Who do I want to become this next year? My arms strain up towards the hundred answers hanging lush and plump on my tree of possibilities. All so sweet and even good. I want to be a scholar and sink into the works of antiquity; to take time to mine the virtues found in Homer or enter into the waters of Shakespeare. I want to be a poet and travel through the songs of Tennyson, Eliot, and Blake—to speak and inhale words of beauty and meaning.
I want to be a theologian and learn from the church fathers and mothers before me, challenging my understanding with Augustine, Aquinas, Watson, or Julian. I want to be a stronger woman—lifting weights, gaining mobility and power with each run on the treadmill and plank on the floor. I could go on for my hopes of organization, memorization, discipline, and even goals for rest. Each hang above whispering: it’s possible. There’s workout routines online, reading lists to pour over, podcasts to guide, commentaries to purchase, and classes to show me how.
Though I know who I want to be, at the same time, at thirty-seven years of age, I know who I am. I’m human and bounded by the laws which my Creator knitted to my frame. Time, space, and the limits of every cell in my aging body tell me that only some fruits will stay perched atop my hands. Perhaps one is possible, but all of them? A turn towards literature steals time I might use for organizing. A decision to run a marathon exchanges evenings of quiet rest and careful study. Each one cancels out a piece of the other.
Even beyond my own limits, who I am this year is bounded by who the four other people beneath my roof will become. Their hopes and dreams sand off the edges of my own as I drive them to one more practice, re-teach another math lesson, or help them build an RC airplane. It’s funny we all begin each year believing life is merely the product of our isolated desires, and not the vulnerable and dependent fabric of reality.
But it’s this narrow and dependent humanity that God proclaimed good. This fragility pushes us towards the source of wisdom himself as we each seek to understand how best to use our time, strengths, and passions. I can’t tell you who to become and how to spend your time, just as you can’t for me—and this is a gift.
Beyond that, our particular boundedness allows us to delight all the more in those who have chosen to jump deeply into scholarship, poetry, theology, movement, design, and every other niche endeavor. God uses these slender margins of our lives to teach us to rejoice in and cherish beauty when we find its glimpses.
Finally, through the rudder of our finitude, the Lord steers our hearts towards a humble and slow patience. A kind of patience that understands these lofty goals for wisdom, virtue, and beauty don’t necessarily have to look like the resolutions we so often make. Becoming a scholar need not include every book on your list, but it might involve growing through one this year. Becoming stronger doesn’t have to tie us to a year-long program, but instead the few and patient moments of pushing your body a little farther. This humble perspective pushes off the lies of all or nothing, and plants us in the contended joy of something—even when it’s limited.
For the people we are to become is never decided in an afternoon or an evening, but by the million and one somethings that the Lord builds up throughout this beautiful and bounded life.
I love talking about the way the Lord shows his goodness and beauty amidst the every day. If you do too, check out my upcoming book, Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually.
What a thoughtful post! I was greatly impacted by your comments on the fragility of life. I remember coming to terms with the boundedness you described, 30 years ago, when I was 37. I was teaching a Sunday school class to other “young-married” couples and discovered the Wisdom of Psalm 90, which instructs us to “number our days,” but to also be “satisfied in the morning with your steadfast love.” We were going through some significant family transitions and facing another military relocation, so Psalm 90 came at the right time! In the context of your post, I was reminded of Psalm 90:16,17.
“Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us, yes, establish the work of our hands. - Psalm 90:16-17
So in our “becoming” the step by step process you highlighted is wrapped in prayer to God to work in our lives, and bless us with his favor, as we use his good gifts for his glory!
Thanks for your encouraging posts!