These emails arrive more frequently now–an inevitable downside of aging. “The year 2025 did not start exactly how I hoped,” Steve began abruptly. Next sentence. “I was recently diagnosed with leukemia…The hematologist was reluctant to give me a definite prognosis, as everyone responds differently to treatment. Her hope is that the treatment will give me three to five years, but it could be more or less.”
No! Not Steve. He’s one of the good guys. Thirty years ago, I met him leading his church youth group of 80 rambunctious teens to Camden for a week. Anyone using their PTO to sleep on church floors while listening to pubescent teens complain about inadequate cell phone charging receptacles deserves a nomination for sainthood. Come on, God. Why Steve. Devout in his faith. Generous. Funny. Kind. An advocate for the poor. An authentic follower of Jesus. As Mother Teresa once said, “God would have more friends if He took care of the ones he had.” I fumbled for a response.
Steve’s second email didn’t actually surprise me. Steve did what Steve does. His faith wasn’t pushed to the side, buried, or used to deny the situation. He went deeper. Deeper with God. Deeper with his family. Deeper with the doctors and nurses. Deeper into the reservoir faith he’s been cultivating for years. Then, in a riveting statement–one I won’t forget. “More than ever, I am learning to live in a daily economy,” he reflected. Daliy economy? Steve elaborated with a few handpicked scriptures. An obvious theme emerged. “This is the day that the Lord has made; give us this day our daily bread; take up your cross each day and follow me; God’s mercies are new every day; better is one day un Your courts than a thousand elsewhere”… Steve, concluded, “I am grateful for today, and am yielding all my tomorrows t God.”
That’s an idea worth pondering. Pause. Put down my iPhone. The truth filled words of a man e3xistentially confronting his mortality. Intellectually, we all understand the human condition is fragile. But the difference between Steve and me? Is it real for Steve? Really real. And because it’s so real, he’s compelled to live differently. The late aging Jimmy Carter once wrote in “The Virtues of Aging:” “If our doctors say that we have a terminal illness and can expect to live only another year, or five years, how would we respond? In fact, we can confront exactly the same question if we are still healthy and have a life expectancy of 15 to 20 more years.” Yet we’re human, aren’t we? We deny. We pretend. We distract ourselves. We get lulled into routines. We stress out about inconsequential things. Oh, and we love to worry about tomorrow–forfeiting the miracle and possibilities of the daily economy.
That’s why we need to embrace the brilliance of the Christian liturgical calendar. It’s a wake -up call. Ash Wednesday creeps up on us once a year–followed by a 40-day Lenten pilgrimage–urging you and me to take a breath, open our eyes and engage in deeper self-reflection. Today, as priests and pastors apply oily ash to our foreheads and murmur those familiar words, ” For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return,” we are once again reminded of our finitude–while affirming God’s most precious gift: another marvelous day to live, love, and fill our hearts with all that makes life a miracle. In a world seemingly averse to self-reflection, talk of ashes and mortality might seem like a downer. I disagree. Acknowledging the brevity of life is a sobering reminder that each day truly matters, calling us to live more intentionally, with greater purpose, and more attuned to God’s presence.
So I ask myself on this first day of Lent: What might it mean to truly live in the daily economy? What might it mean to rejoice and be glad–today? What might it mean to trust and thank God for my daily bread today? What might it mean to take up my cross and follow Jesus–today? What might it mean to live in God’s abundant mercies–today? Not tomorrow. I can yield that to God. But tdoay..oh, today…I get to choose how to really live.
Bruce Main
Founder and President of Urban Promise and Urban Promise International
Camden, New Jersey