Homily: For My Refrigerator by Justin Parkinson

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When I became a parent in 2008, three months shy of my 40th birthday, two unexpected things happened to me: first, love opened up to me in a way I had never known before, and second, I suddenly became aware of my limited time on earth.

 

When I became a parent, my mortality became apparent to me.

 

I was never really concerned about the finitude of my life when I was in my 20s, or even into my 30s.  Why did I need to be? How depressing.  How terribly boring that would’ve been.  I had art to make, parties to attend, gallery openings to crash, girls to meet, and drinks to be drunk.  I was a young, vital artist living in New York City – the late night capital of the world – and I was out to grab the whole scene of it all, the whole “hell yeah let’s do it again” of it all.  I wanted to find and soak in the wildness of my life, revel in it, bump it up a notch and never look back.  I was convinced my raucousness, my irreverence made me more creative, more interesting, more daring, more fun.

 

But then something happened that changed my life forever, for the better.  I met Andrea. I found my best friend. And I learned how to love, truly love, someone other than myself.  The earth stopped revolving around me and I was living on it again, with her – enjoying life in New York and all that it has to offer, with her; reaching outside of myself, being something bigger than just myself, with her. She is the big apple of my eye, my valentine of valentines, and our life together has brought me more in touch with the world around me than when I was younger.  I am so thankful for her influence.

 

And I was in awe of her when our kids were born. In. Awe. She carried our twins for 37½ weeks and then gave birth after an excruciating weekend of labor. And from the moment I first met our children – from the moment I first heard “here’s the boy” and then “here’s the girl” – love wrapped me in its warmth and lifted me up into a place I had never been.

 

I was so happy, and so utterly terrified all at the same time. Are these people going to let us just walk out of here with these babies, I thought at the hospital? Don’t I have to pass some sort of test or something, like a parents license? But no, there was none of that. We only needed our selves and our baby seats, and we were able to go straight home to fill our apartment with the crying squealing giggling burping sounds of life. What a time! What a blur those first few months were: a haze of breast milk, diapers and sleepless nights. And before we knew it, poof, we had two little people on our hands, Prudence and Quentin, the new stars of our universe. And we were revolving around them.

 

Our every concern was for them. What food is the healthiest? What cribs are the safest? What soap is the least toxic? What stroller is the easiest to maneuver? Are we sure we want to stay here, in New York?

 

Yes. We were not going to leave New York. We were going to take our chances and raise our children in the greatest city on earth, and we were going to like it. We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we weren’t poor either. We had challenges, both of us working, our own parents too far away to visit every month and childcare that was sometimes hard to schedule. But we also had advantages that many new families did not and we were determined to make it all work. And we did. And we continue to do so.

 

I look back on that time, our early days of parenthood, with fondness. I’m proud that we made it through that period without losing our minds. And we did it with a sense of humor and joy and love. I can’t say I miss the diapers or the stroller all that much. But I am often struck, caught off guard sometimes, by the frequent reminders from Facebook of memories 7 or 6 or 5 years ago and it blows my mind. The days last forever, and the years fly by. And these little turkeys that I could hold at the same time in the nook of my arms, that could lie side-by-side across the width of one crib, transformed before my eyes everyday.

 

They were growing older with excitement, and I was growing older with dread. I’d work and play with them by day. And by night, in that silent hour just before sleep when the city is quiet and all the world’s problems conspire against you; when you take stock in everything you’re thankful for and worry about everything you have no control over – I’d flood my mind with questions. Where will we be ten years from now, when the kids are in fifth grade? Where will be twenty years from now, when the kids are in college? Where will we be thirty years from now, when I am almost eighty?

 

I find its best in those silent hours to breathe, roll over and try to sleep. I was raised to avoid in-action whenever possible. I was raised in the old Irish Catholic philosophy that God helps those who help themselves, that to get by you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and never go down without a fight. But you can’t fight time. Time conquers all. And it does little good losing sleep over it.

 

Instead I’d like to make the most of my time, however long that may be. I’d like to find and soak in the quality of my life now, and revel in it. I’d like to live the most life out of each day, to connect more deeply with the people I love and the world around me, and to serve the greater good in some small way, each day.

 

But how do I do that? How do I stop the worrying and just enjoy? It’s not enough to say, I want a better life. I have to get out there and actually commit to the act of living, actually commit to a more purposeful effort in my life, commit to being as involved as possible in my life and in the lives of those I love. And perhaps one way to realize a more quality filled life is to recognize the barriers and distractions that prevent one from being open, from truly connecting to the world, and let go of them for a time. Let go of the office, it will be there tomorrow. Let go of the screens, they will be there tomorrow. Let go of the TV show and the news and the politics, they will be there tomorrow.

 

But today will not.

So here, before you now, I present the beginning of my simple plan. It’s the opposite of a mid-life crisis. It’s the start of my efforts, at age 47, to work toward a fuller, more appreciative life. I need to get to the gym a few times a week, and remember to eat my salads. And I need to remember to come here, to First U, this gym of the soul, to check in. Thank you for letting me check in today.I’ll print this sermon, date it, and hang it on my refrigerator – next to the school calendar and the kids spelling tests – as a reminder not to be frozen by the fear of death, whenever that may come, but to be liberated by the joy of life, by its potential, which is before us now.

 

Life is hard. But life is also beautiful. Let’s wrap our arms around it everyday.