Late Bloomers
In medicine, you are most likely to make your mark in history in your late thirties. In theology, you are most likely to have your opus after seventy. Some fields take absolutely keen analysis, while others take a lifetime of pondering. I am in the pondering profession. In theology, you can still feel like a kid in your field when you are pushing sixty.
Wisdom takes a lifetime of reading and mistakes. Experience is everything. Theology is not about theory, it is about wrestling with life. It is Jacob wrestling with the angel; it is the forty years of crossing the desert. Like Don Quixote, you sing your final song and die pointing to some great life theme that kept you going through impossible odds.
Mother Teresa was a late bloomer. Jesus got in and out of this life early. By the time he was thirty-three, he was finished (yet he continues his work by his ability to inspire millions). Composers have tragic lives. Artists sometimes kill themselves because they cannot create beyond their physical limitations. Actors are tragic figures.
Most people live relatively long lives. They have families and stable jobs. They are the meek that inherit the earth. Others of us are the clowns in the parade. We are court jesters, philosophers, and dreamers. Normal people talk about us long after we are dead. We live and die — sometimes being known for only a single thought or action, but that is enough. God is efficient.
