“
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.”
-- Psalm 90:12
How do we count our days?
When I conducted a memorial service last week, I used this verse as the text for my homily. Lois Thomas, the woman in whose memory we gathered, would have celebrated her 96
th
birthday this week. She and her late husband had been married more than 67 years at the time of his death. Those are just two examples of how we usually count our days: we check the boxes off the calendar and add them up into weeks, months, and years. A recent
comic
illustrates this well.
What if, instead, we counted how many days we practiced mercy or worked for justice? For Mrs. Thomas, I suggested counting how many days she had brightened for others, just with her warm and welcoming smile.
Genesis 35 recounts the death of the patriarch Isaac with these simple words: “And Isaac breathed his last; he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days.” I like that image: not time running out, minutes ticking away, the sands of the hour glass draining empty. What if we thought of aging as the process of filling up with days?
With what do we fill our days? I, for one, spend far too much time playing solitaire on the computer. What if I used those hours instead to read a good book, or to call old friends, or simply to take a walk?
“So teach us to count our days / that we may gain a wise heart.” It is not so much the number of our days, but the quality of our days that matters. Life is not simply about counting up the days that we live. Life is about making our days count, no matter how many of them we may be given.
Years ago, I read a rabbinic story. I have long since lost the source, but the story goes something like this: A man dies and goes to heaven. Abraham, the patriarch of all Israel, greets him at the gates of paradise. “Welcome, my son,” says Father Abraham. “I have three questions to ask. If you answer all three appropriately, you will be welcomed into God’s paradise.”
The man swallows hard, and nods. “The first question: Have you kept God’s commandments?” The man hesitates, then replies, “Well, I have not lived a perfect life. But I can say I have earnestly tried to follow God’s commandments.”
Abraham replies, “A fair and honest answer! Now the second question: “Have you prayed for the coming of the Messiah?” “Yes, I have prayed for the Messiah to come.”
“Good! One more appropriate answer, and the Holy One will welcome you into paradise: Have you taken delight in the wonderful world that God has created for you?”
How do we number our days? Do only working days, productive days, money-earning days count? Or do the days we take delight in God’s gifts count even more?
Two Facebook friends, who (so far as I know) do not know each other, make it a spiritual practice to post daily messages of gratitude. One,
Vinita Hampton Wright
begins her daily post with the words, “What I love about my life today.” The other,
Rev. Andy Mangum
, began a recent post with this challenge: “Tuesday, August 14 it will be 100 days until Thanksgiving. I’d like to encourage you to post something you’re thankful for each of those 100 days. It’s remarkable the difference beginning the day with an expression of gratitude has made in my outlook.”
“
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.”
--Bill
