Let Evening Come

Van Gogh, Self-Portrait With Straw Hat, 1887

I was walking behind a young woman in the hallway the other day and was struck how spry and agile she was, just walking, all so natural for her. And I thought, I’ll never walk like that again. When walking becomes a conscious act, you know you are growing older.

I’ve been thinking more about growing older these days. This happens to folks, you may have noticed. You begin to ponder the passing of days or years, first about your friends and loved ones, and then, one day, it’s about you too! Sometimes you drift into a kind of melancholy. What’s it all about now, Alphie? 

We find ourselves trying so hard to push against our mortality. Some of this pushing back is helpful, I suppose, but I’ve been asking myself if I’m not really seeking a whole new posture on this new chapter.

We all begin thinking more intently about what comes after death. For Christians, of course, there is something profoundly glorious promised out ahead. What if we pull something from that next glorious stage back into the life we have yet to live. I believe that’s exactly what Jesus encourages us to do. You can walk right into the kingdom of God, he says, right now, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Why not do this as we grow older?  

As I was reflecting on this this heaven-on-earth posture as I grow older, I ran into Jane Kenyon’s lovely poem called “Let Evening Come.” Mary C. Morrison borrows this title, appropriately referenced, in her book Let Evening Come: Reflections On Aging. Both are worth reading.

Here the way Jane Kenyon reflects about letting evening come:  

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving   

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   

as a woman takes up her needles   

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   

Let the wind die down. Let the shed   

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   

in the oats, to air in the lung   

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   

be afraid. God does not leave us   

comfortless, so let evening come.

I’m fond also of that story where Jesus asks the key question in all of this:    

The next day again, John [the Baptist] was standing with two of his disciples when Jesus passed by. John looked towards him and said, ‘There is the Lamb of God!’ When the two disciples heard what he said, they followed Jesus. [Jesus]  turned and saw them following; ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked. They said, ‘Rabbi,’ (which means ‘Teacher’) ‘where are you staying?’ ‘Come and see,’ he replied. So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent the rest of the day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. John 1:35-39

“What are you looking for?” That’s the big question at any age, but it’s become my question for this new time as evening settles down. Our answers are very different from what they were before, but imagine spending, until four in the afternoon, just talking about this question with Jesus. “Come and see,” he invites us. Imagine what you would say.

I think I’m looking for contentment, restfulness, peace, quiet, silence, solitude. I hope those are all good for my age, Lord? I might tell him this will take some work for me, given the habits of my heart throughout my life. I’m also hoping to be quiet and attentive enough to see beauty more often, all around me. I’m looking for love, of course, but now I sense it is more how to give love than to receive. I’m looking to shed the burden of envy, the scramble for achievement or attention, the constant comparisons with others, all impediments to this love. I am desperately looking to stop worrying about falling behind, not doing enough, trying to measure up.

Are these the right questions, Lord? With so much anxiety and fear in the world, I might end by asking for unadulterated joy, the kind I heard you promise, Lord, long ago.  

I’ve got a hunch, these are the kinds of things, as Jesus listens, that will let evening come.