My mid-life crisis happened when I was 36. It lasted about 45 minutes.
It happened as my wife and I were at a joint birthday party for a man turning 50 and his daughter turning 20. We realized during the party that (a) we were closer in age to the 50-year-old and (b) we preferred his company to the younger set. I turned to my wife and said, “Honey, WE are now officially the old people!” When we got home I processed this realization by listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water on repeat. That was it.
When I turned 50 this past weekend I experienced perhaps the opposite of a mid-life crisis. It began with the course I was on in Dublin, filled with meaning and blessing and delicious birthday cake. And then when the course ended, I headed for the nearest pub.
This was a genuine Irish neighborhood pub, straight out of a James Joyce novel. No tourists. I ordered a birthday whisky and sat at the bar with the locals watching rugby. The man beside me gazed upon his frothy Guinness with a tender mixture of reverence and lust.
My eye was drawn to a poster on the wall promoting the “Dublin Gospel Choir”. Their benefit concert was scheduled to begin within the hour at the nearby Dublin Rugby Club. Why not? I finished my whisky and headed for the concert.
The Dublin Rugby Club has all the charm of an old bowling alley. Featureless white walls are adorned with faded rugby pennants. Ancient floorboards reek from generations of spilled beer. The all-local crowd was packed in on lawn chairs. I stood in the back nursing a Guinness in gleeful expectation.
Before the choir began they took up a collection for the nearby Saint Francis Hospice. As they passed the donation bucket round, the choir director shared a heartfelt story of the hospice staff quietly sneaking whisky into her father’s room as he lay dying. When he finally died, they lovingly slipped a bottle into his casket to “ease him over the threshold”. God bless Ireland.
Then the choir began. The Dublin Gospel Choir is, without doubt, the whitest soul group I have ever seen. But man can they sing. They delivered a moving mix of spirituals and modern classics as the audience swayed along. Beer was spilled on the floor. Then the choir launched into a gospel version of…Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Hearing that song moved me to tears of joy. I would like to think it was the effect of whisky and Guinness. But in truth the tears flowed in happy nostalgia for my life long ago and gratitude for the present; for the touching humanity of the hospice staff; in remembrance of a facility across the ocean in which my own infirm mother is so well cared for. Unlocked by the familiar song, I glimpsed a small fraction of the overwhelming grace in my life. In all our lives.
I walked back through dark streets and warm Irish rain. I came upon an empty church. I wandered in. I lit a votive candle and sat in silence, reflecting on the choir’s unexpected birthday gift. Then I said “thank you” over and over and over again.
[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]