For Wilshire Baptist Church
There’s an old saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. Monday afternoon LeAnn and I ran some errands that danced all around that thought and then some.
First, we went to Texas Oncology at Medical City to drop off a disk of my most recent scans from UT Southwestern. We hadn’t been to Texas Oncology in two months, but after being there weekly through the spring and summer last year, going back felt familiar. As we walked in, I looked over my right shoulder to see the ever-present Christmas tree, always decked out for whatever season or holiday is coming, which in this case was St. Patrick’s Day. But familiarity came mostly from the kindness of the staff, who we realize deal with patients who are rarely “living their best life now,” to quote a more contemporary saying.
Our next stop, just a block away, was to drop off documents for our annual tax preparation. Like most people who are self-employed, we earn as much as we can during the year and then dig and scratch for proof of deductible expenses and contributions. This time around those expenses included thousands of miles and hundreds of dollars in parking and tolls related to medical appointments. When you go to treatment clinics across town every day for months, the numbers add up, as does the paperwork.
But the tax drop off is always more than just business because our CPA is a lifelong friend of LeAnn and mine too now by marriage. As such, the visit includes some catching up on family matters — from weddings and grandbabies to aging parents and travel. It’s time well spent with extended family and the visit feels like a blessing.
With business out of the way, it was just another couple of blocks to do something we’ve wanted to do for almost two years: walk the labyrinth at Faith Presbyterian Hospice. We discovered the labyrinth while looking out from the balcony of the room where my father spent his final days. That was a holy time, and the labyrinth – nestled behind a low wall on the shore of a small lake and shielded from the noise of the city by trees and office buildings – looked like a holy place we would want to visit again.
On this day, it was warm and sunny and tailor-made for a meditative walk. LeAnn started out on the winding path first and I followed her a minute later. Walking in silence but with thoughts and prayers on our hearts, we slowly circled our way to the center where a large sphere of polished granite floated on a thin sheet of water. Carved into the granite was Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” Lingering there a moment, we nudged the sphere a little with our hands and noticed how it moved just slightly on the water. The command to “be still” seemed more than just written on the rock; it seemed to embody the rock.
Then, one at a time, we began winding our way back through the labyrinth. As we got to the end, a man entered the space. He smiled but didn’t say a word as he walked directly to the center of the labyrinth without following the path. There, leaning down and putting his arms and shoulders into it, he gave the granite sphere some heavy pushes until it was spinning rapidly, the Psalm rotating almost faster than you could read it: “ . . . Be still . . . Be still . . . Be still . . .” He stepped back and watched it for a moment, and then with the same smile on his face, he walked away.
As we returned to our car, I noticed the man walking into the hospice building, and I’ve wondered: Was he an employee taking a break or a family member of someone winding down their final hours? Why the brief visit to the labyrinth seemingly just to spin the granite sphere? Was he rushed for time but in desperate need for reassurance that God is still God?
And so it goes. We spin and wind from one day to the next — through life and families and careers and taxes — until age or illness slows us down and eventually stops us completely. Franklin’s full quote, written in a letter in 1789 to French physicist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy who shared his interest in electricity, speaks to the impermanence of all we do: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
That may be true, but the God of the psalmist – the God who created the electricity in the storm and everything under it and above it – transcends all we do and all we know. God created the world but is not of this world, and neither are we in the long run. Sometimes we need to take a break from our business and busy-ness and be still to remember that. And like the man at the labyrinth, we might need to lean into that message a little.