Whether we're rich or poor, male or female, a nineteenth-century
Swiss jeweller like Isaac Golay in his oversized frock coat, or a
twentieth-century American clergyman like me with a penchant for writing books,
or a young squirt celebrating his twenty-first birthday in the twenty-first
century like you, our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a
good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a
world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We
search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to
believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and
beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives
we live.
Buechner – The Longing
for Home.
After three years, today is my final day at the Royal
Commission.
On days like today – days of leaving, days of finishing one
chapter and turning to the next – it seems to me that the
layers that we fastidiously build up around our souls to protect them from the
rough and tumble of life temporarily thin out. For a moment, life is allowed to
brush up against us – undiluted, unrestrained – like water over newly unmossed
rocks.
On days like today, it seems I can feel the moment – the tip
tap of my fingers on the keyboard, the distant murmur of colleagues in another
room talking about god knows what, as well as the strange silence that offices
with so many people in them capable of making noise, or making themselves known
to each other, often have. On days like to day, I am aware that this brief
moment is one of many other moments I have had, and will continue to have until
finally my time is snuffed out, like a match.
But most of all, on days like today, I am conscious that each
of these moments, each one, is a precious gift. And when I think of that,
there’s suddenly somehow not enough beauty, not enough art, not enough music,
not enough tears, to express how grateful I am.
I have searched for a long time, it seems. And I’ll continue
to search of course. But it does seem to me, that to one degree or another, I
have found many of the things that Buechner refers to above during my time here
at the Royal Commission. A self to be. Work to do. A self to love and be loved
by. And some sense that in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of
anything, there is goodness and value and meaning in trying nonetheless. And
that is to be cherished.
