From the Senior Circle to the Boots

Andrew Marvell in his poem, To His Coy Mistress, has a line that has always intrigued me--

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;

Always unabated, unceasing, undeterred Time chips away at the Block of Now that we stand on. Time is always there relentlessly, though imperceptibly, bringing us closer and closer to our end.

When I was in high school there was a large, circular floor design in the main entrance. The students referred to it as the senior circle, and seniors only were to walk on it. Even then I thought the tradition silly and without any meaning or purpose. I remember looking at it one day during one of my underclassman years and thinking, "The day will come that I will stand on that. And the day will come that I won't even remember what it looks likes." Both of those are now true. I cannot remotely remember what the design looked like, not even close.

From 1981 to 1985 I was stationed in Berlin, Germany for Army Intelligence. On the first day of arrival I noticed a pair of boots hanging in a tree. Since someone was standing nearby, I asked, "What are they there for." He answered, "When someone receives his orders to leave Berlin, he'll have a party, and he will throw his boots into a tree." Knowing I'd be in Berlin for four years, I looked up there and thought, "Before I know it, four years will be gone." Sure enough, the four years hurried past, and the day came that I received my orders to leave Berlin. (My boots stayed with me however.) That day when I first saw those boots was 30 years ago. Count then, 30 years!

Sometime between the senior circle and the boots I read a Christian tract. The title eludes me, but the story remains fresh. A stranger approaches a busy man making his way in the world.

The stranger asks, "Why are you doing that?"

"To make money."

"And then what?"

"The family and me can buy the things we want, live where what, and do what we want."

"I see," says the stranger. "And then what?"

"Well, I guess we'll grow old and enjoy life."

"And then what?"

"Well, we all die."

"Yes, we do. And then what?"

We have to survive in this world, but is survival our only goal. Have I been successful because I have 52 toys, and all my neighbors only have 37? We will move from the senior circle to the boots before we know it. And we will move from the boots to the casket even faster.

Is life really no more than a checkoff list of goals and things that are forgotten 10 minutes after we've died? Is that really it?

When I was a minister of a church in central Indiana my mother bought me plaque, when she hung in my office. It now hangs in my living room, where I see it everyday.

"Only one life, 'twill soon be past--

Only what's done

for Christ will last."

There is no need to be morbid about Time's chipping away at our lives, but there is a reason to be alert to it. Let's not forget that our time is short, and we need to serve Christ now. The time between the senior circle and the boots is ... very, very short.