Five Minute Friday: Older

Older
GO

Do you remember that scene from Perelandra (by C. S. Lewis) about aging? Ransom and The Green Lady (and maybe the Devil-guy was there too, I can't remember his name...Weston?) are talking about information and growing older. The Lady learns something about God and, after digesting it a moment, realizes the fact made her grow older and asks for a reprieve in talking. She needs time to catch up after growing.

Growing older is like that. It's not a simple line graph, but more like the tide chart. It comes with experience, with facts internalized and incorporated into what was previously known.

Tide Chart

Line Graph

I wish growing was like a simple line graph. Wouldn't that be nice? Just a simple slope, always further up and further in. But it's not. Sometimes it's a simple, easy slope; sometimes it's a plateau with no seeming progress; sometimes it's a steep slope that we can barely scale; sometimes it's a cliff that nobody can climb ("The Cliffs of Insanity!").

Growing is also like the seasons. Don't we go through times of incredible fruitfulness? Days of slow, peaceful ripening? Times of cold, seemingly dead, lack of productivity, when it's so cold your fingers and toes just seem to freeze off your body? And then--sometimes it's beautiful, dappled mornings of delicate, blossom-on-the-breeze, green-grass-on-my-bare-feet, rebirth?

STOP. (Sorry about that...my timer didn't ring very loudly...)

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Photo Credits: Math Goodies, I Love Shelling.