Back in the day of full time pastoring, three small children and Sharon’s career in medicine “free time” was an unproven concept – sort of like the possibility of life on Mars. Theoretically possible, but requiring an almost impossible effort to determine if it actually existed. Fast forward a few decades and we find ourselves on the happy side of retirement with a seemingly endless supply of “free time” to follow John Muir’s desire, “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.” However, in their timeless classic “Time” , Pink Floyd captured a sad reality about time.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time…
Pink Floyd “Time”
While we now have almost endless “free time”, the reality of life is that no one has an endless amount of time. So what to do? Henry David Thoreau went into the woods to live simply “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” He did not want to, “when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” I guess the point of all this is that Sharon and I recognize that time is a precious gift. We don’t want to waste a single day. We are also trying to balance our desire to see some of this big world, while also spending time with people we love. We are trying to balance our efforts to do things that bring us joy, while also doing things that have meaning and bring joy to others. A bit of a challenge that…
So, recently Sharon spent some time back in Wisconsin. Jim received Packer season tickets as a high school graduation present. While the Neubauer clan grew up attending Packer games, it’s been a while since Sharon and her Dad watched a game together. She also spent a wonderful weekend spent with a group of girls, many of whom went to school together from kindergarten all the way through high school. There was of course time for Jennifer – Sharon’s best good buddy (they go together like peas and carrots), as well as with sister Sue, Allen, Andrew and Eric. Over all, time well spent.
With Sharon otherwise occupied, I had time to finish one of my many, long overdue home projects. I’d re-routed and rebuilt some stairs between a middle and lower deck, but hadn’t had time (OK – I hadn’t taken the time) to finish all the railings. It was nice to have long swaths of time, uninterrupted by work and other responsibilities to cut, paint, and install fifty-one stiles and all the supporting pieces. Check one big item off my “to do” list.
With that job done and Sharon arriving back in town in a few days, I decided to reward myself with a micro-adventure. I drove up to a favorite spot for a lovely evening under the stars, followed by a paddle uphill from Lee’s Ferry the next day.
I had started the day with a vague notion of possibly paddling the entire 15.6 miles from Lee’s Ferry up to Glen Canyon dam. As always, it was hard but satisfying work paddling upstream. This time around, I managed to make it past the big “hill” at Horseshoe bend that had stopped me on a previous effort. For some reason I found it amusing to look up at all the people lining the edge of the canyon wall and realizing that my little boat and I were probably going to be in lots of selfie photos. At some point 12-13 miles upriver, it seemed that the current was speeding up and I was slowing down. Time to give in to gravity and just go with the flow. Except for a two mile stretch where a hellacious headwind actually blew me upstream while I was attempting to paddle down – with the current – it was a glorious float. Upon review – I considered this a day – actually several days – well spent.
