The psalmist urges God to teach us to number our days. It’s easy to think of all the things we number or count. As a child I can remember counting silver dollars, baseball cards, the money I made from mowing lawns, etc. Each time I would carefully lay out my valuable assets, careful not to lose any or confuse any of the counted with the uncounted. At the end of counting, I always had both a sense of accomplishment for what I had gained and a goal for what I still wanted to achieve.
At that time the idea of counting my days occurred on two occasions; “How many days left until vacation?” And, “How many days of vacation until school began again?” In the act of counting I temporarily stepped outside of time. I was no longer in school when I was counting the days and I am sure my teachers could attest to that! And I was not on vacation when I was counting the days left. It is as if we have the capacity to step outside of ourselves and outside of time in the act of making assessments. As I become the observer, I no longer merely experience life, I reflect upon it by using my God given ability to use logic.
The word logic comes from the Greek word Logos. In the beginning was the Word. The Word is that ordering logic to life and the universe. The Word is Wisdom. The Word is Timeless. The Word is God’s way, God’s Path. The Word we are taught is God’s logic and God’s logic is manifest to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
To number our days is to begin to see and value our lives from the perspective of the Eternal Word, the Logic that undergirds the universe. To number our days is to see ourselves the way God sees us. It is looking backwards with appreciation and regret. It is looking forward with either faith or fear.
After all we are created in the image of God, as such we have the Logos, the divine word, the divine logic within us. It is no wonder we are people who learn how to count at an early age. It is however incumbent upon us to take these God given skills and assess our lives. We are called upon to learn how to value each and every moment, each and every experience and to make adjustments so that the remainder of our lives can more closely conform to our divine calling.
As we begin a new year in our church life, we are called to be religious. Not merely by rote repetition. We are not called to keep church going because we think it is the right thing to do. We are called to this deeper task of understanding ourselves and from the perspective of the Eternal. We are called to rediscover what it means to be created in the image of God, agents of love, forgiveness and healing. Our liturgy and our life together is a sacred calling to manifest the Kingdom of God in this lifetime.
As your priest I call upon you to number your days; discover your life anew and to strive to have the mind of Christ within you. All our work and play is designed to make the Word, come alive in our words, in our relationships and in our actions. Join in this sacred pilgrimage and drink from the well of eternal life.
