This past weekend I have attended 2 baby showers and 1 wake. As I sat thinking about today's post, I thought about those 2 showers and that one wake and how happy the showers were and how they reflected the celebrations of life beginning. Then I went to the wake and came full circle in the circle of life - remembering someone's life lived and now is living with the Lord.
All life begins. Living things all have a moment at which they become "alive." That beginning of life marks the first point on the circle of life. Each family of living things has its own life cycle. Some organisms, like some fast plants, are born, mature, and die rapidly. Other organisms, like pine trees, have life cycles lasting for thousands of years. But just as all life begins, life also ends. With every ending there is a beginning - the circle of life.
Remember the children's story called "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch? If you haven't go buy it. It is one of the best children's books ever! It begins with a picture of a young mother holding her newborn baby. As she rocks her newborn baby in her rocking chair, she sings her child this song, “I’ll love you forever; I’ll like for always; as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”
In the next scene we meet a two year old, so busy in the bathroom, with toilet paper all over the floor, with toothpaste squeezed out of the tube and also on the floor; and spilled powder on the floor. That night, as the mother watches her sleeping and exhausted two year old, she again sings her baby that song, “I’ll love your forever; I’ll like for always; as long as I am living, my baby you’ll be.”
In the next scene, we meet a ten year old boy, marching into the kitchen, blowing his bubble gum, baseball mitt in hand, earphones in his ears, mudprints on the kitchen floor from his muddy tennis shoes. That night, the mother holds her ten year old son in her arms (ten year old children will still let you do that) and sings him her song, “I’ll love your forever; I’ll like for you always; as long as I am living, my baby you’ll be.”
Time quickly passes and the next scene is some teenagers rocking and rolling in the living room, pizza on the floor, coke bottles opened, a guy sprawled out on the sofa and talking to a girl friend, the music so loud that the cat has its ears covered. That night, the mother stands outside the closed door of her teenage son, opens it momentarily, looks in and sings her song quietly to herself, “I’ll love you forever; I’ll live you for always; as long as I am living, my baby you’ll be.” She quietly closes the door to his bedroom.
Time again passes by quickly. The young man moves away from home and has grown up and is now older. The mother and grown up young adult son talk weekly about little nothings on the telephone. At the end of every phone conversation, they conclude with the same words, “Love you son. Love you Mom.” The mother hangs up the telephone and remembers her song, “I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I am living, my baby you’ll be.”
Time again passes. The son answers the telephone and it is someone calling about his elderly mother. The son rushes home and goes to his Mom’s bedroom. For some reason, he spontaneous picks up his elderly mother, holds her in his arms, and sits in the old rocking chair and rocks his mother. His mother with her hair in a tight bun, her flannel nighty and her woolen socks. As he rocks his mother in the old rocking chair, he notices the four pictures of him on the wall, pictures of her son from four epochs in life. And now it is his turn to sing that song that he had heard so often throughout his whole life, “I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as you’re living, your baby I’ll be.
Time again passes. His mother has died. He has married. He now has a daughter. He is in his own home and he climbs the stairway to his infant daughter’s bedroom. He reaches down into the crib, holds his new born daughter to his chest, and he quietly sings the song that he knows so well, “I’ll love you for always. I’ll like you forever. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”
The cycle of life continues forever. The circle of life is endless. Just as in the Lion King song.
