[Before you read this, know that I have ZERO issues with hair dye. I think it’s cool, and usually looks really nice. This post is about pre-mid-life crisis stuff, not hair color morality.]
It’s September, 2022. Summer heat is trying to hang on, but the weatherman says at the end of this week fall temps are taking over. We live in West Tennessee, so I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to mean. Maybe that we’re allowed to go to the pumpkin patch with a clean conscience?
Yesterday, I got a haircut. You know, haircut/therapy session, same thing. Anyways, in the evening peace of the high-ceilinged hair salon, the reflection of a little girl looked skeptically back out at my gray hairs and wrinkles, unsure of how to feel.
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This life, a strange yet somewhat methodical collaboration of countable moments, mocks our souls. Moments that pass, days, months, seasons, years. Lifetimes in which our young souls watch, entangled, as our bodies wrinkle, fade, and fail. Eagerly, no, desperately, we rush into activities, obligations, information consumption,identity hunt frenzies, and gossip, ever expanding our insatiable lust after pleasure and… distraction. Or, we dissolve into books, TV, gossip, alcohol, anger… mindless depression.
I’m a little girl tangled up in a not quite middle-aged body. The Paradox of life is funny, and the older I get the more it peers out at me from all around, like a great big joke laughing behind peek-a-boo hands.
Parents say “eat your food and you’ll grow big and strong!” But what you don’t know is that as you grow you will become smaller. We think that with age comes wisdom- answers to difficult questions, but loss steals your answers and experience confounds your solutions.
Shows of physical power and control, answers that offer quick fixes to complex situations, self-made self-discovery, these things are mental mirages. Folly is wrapped up in the heart of man, and we beat ourselves at the game of deception.
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“Are you ok?” My beautician’s voice startled me, and I laughed. “Oh yeah, I was just thinking.”
She smiled. “We could do a touch up. Just a little color to get rid of that gray.” I’ve often wondered how many people my age actually have graying hair hiding under dyes.
I told her no. I need to see the gray hair. I need to figure out what life means in this phase. Where I’ve been, where I am, where I’m going. The new experience of loss, the awareness that more and deeper loss is coming quicker than seems possible. I need to understand what it means to be alive while I’m dying, what it means to watch my babies age. I need to know what it means to look back at a slow past and to look forward to a fleeting future, without losing my soul in the in-between.
Seasons come and go, bringing with them new life and delight, nostalgic treasures, and the tears of lifelong burdens and measureless loss.
As summer heat interferes with your anticipation of Autumn, let the warmth linger. Let yourself linger and rest. Let your thoughts, fears, anticipations, and regrets linger. Don’t chase them away. Let them linger, let them fade. Take some time. Don’t try to come up with answers. Life is not what it seems. Your soul may feel tangled up now, but the Spirit of the Lord of love, mercy, kindness, and justice is present with us. Rest in His goodness, and love your neighbor. God is the Beginning and the End, and He most certainly fills the in-between too. All things are being worked out, and no plans of His will falter.
Being a fool with little to offer, but who rests in the wisdom of God, is better than having all earthly knowledge to give out. Being a small and insignificant nobody with little influence, but who walks in the strength and glory of God, is better than all worldly purpose and honor. Living in a fading body with the struggles of life within and without, while simultaneously resting in the Spirit of the resurrected King, is far better than any fleeting mirage of youth or happiness this world could ever offer.
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