by Rev. Lynne Hinton
“I want you to ask him why I’m still here.” That’s what the ninety-three year old told me to pray. “You ask God why I’m still here.”
“Okay,” I respond. I will do that.
The existential dilemma from this patient is not new information to me. He was quite forthright the first time we met. “I’m tired,” he told me. “My wife is dead. I can’t drive. I don’t want to be here anymore. What use am I?”
I fell for it, of course. Filling the void with possibilities of meaning and purpose for a man well beyond years of productivity and masculine vitality. I reminded him of his place in the family, the wisdom he might share, the role he still plays as elder, as war veteran, as great grandfather.
He waved it all away at that first visit; so I didn’t bring those possibilities up again. Not this time. I just said, “Okay, I’ll ask God for you.”
And I did.
I have.
And for a few days God was as withholding to me as he apparently had been for this old man. And then one day God spoke. And I was listening. And now I will tell this patient what I heard.
Our purpose, whether we are three or ninety-three, thirty, forty, or fifty-five is to acknowledge beauty, to pay attention when it shows itself and to honor it. To see it in the ribbon of color that flashes across the sky or the perfect flake of snow as it falls, the light at dawn, the shape of the mountain at dusk, the bright morning star. Sounds of cranes rising from shallow water, a child’s laughter, the rustling of dry leaves stirred by a late day’s breeze.
The taste of a ripe berry, as sweet as you ever remember. The touch of a beloved, hand on hand. The smell of roasting chiles.
Surely, we are designed for greatness, for selfless acts of generosity and heroic measures of sacrifice. Surely, we are meant to push and pull against what limits us or defines us and create music and art and build bridges and solve complex problems and be quick and smart and relevant.
But even when we are none of those things, even when we cannot run or hold a thought or speak in long complete sentences and be witty and charming and dependent on no one but ourselves, we can still mark what is perfect and bold and right.
“Behold and honor beauty,” I will tell him. “That is why you are still here.” And then I will take his hand and walk with him outside.