Today is my eldest son’s birthday. Paul was born in “Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.” I was a junior in college and we were living in a 35 x 8-foot trailer on the college campus. Paul’s first bedroom was a wardrobe closet in that trailer where the “porta-crib” just barely fit.
“Swiftly flow the days…One season following another…”.
Henri J.M. Nouwen wrote: Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you.” Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: “Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished.” No, we say: “Thank you for being born and being among us.”
On birthdays we celebrate the present. We do not complain about what happened or speculate about what will happen, but we lift someone up and let everyone say: “We love you.”
