Guns, Girls and Gold

Seeing what life is about with hindsight

12/21/2021

Lk 1:39-45 Mary set out in those days and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Have you heard the old adage that “hindsight is twenty-twenty”? It means that the further down you get on the road of life and look back, the more clearly you see what life is all about and what you should have done with your life. For example, I look back on my high school days and wish I had played football for Catholic High School. During my four years we won the state football championship an unprecedented two times, one year beating Northside in Fort Smith – sorry, Grizzlies fans! Instead of football, though, I played soccer, a safer sport. In one game, where I was playing defense, I tried to kick the ball away from our goal and the ball actually curved so much it went backward into our own goal. I scored for the opposing team. I bet Beckham never bent it like that!

There is a phenomenon these days of grandparents raising their grandchildren. Have you noticed this? For a whole host of reasons, millennials have abdicated their role of parenting and left their children literally in their grandparents’ laps. And grandparents are rising to meet that responsibility in heroic ways. Why? Well, because grandparents have the benefit of “hindsight,” and can see that life is about more than “guns, girls and gold,” as C. S. Lewis colorfully put it. That is, life is about more than money, sex and power, and playing video games all day. Because they are further down the road of life, they see clearly that life is really about family, friends, and faith. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

In the gospel today, we meet another set of elderly people who could have been grandparents, who will be raising a child, namely, the elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth, who will raise John the Baptist. Of course, John was their own son, not a grandson. Nevertheless, their advanced age afforded them a certain “clarity of vision” to see God’s plan unfolding. If you closely study their names, you discover the depth of their faith life. The name “Zechariah” comes from two Hebrew words, “zachar” and “yah” (Yahweh), meaning, “God remembers.” And “Elizabeth” is a compound of “El” and “sheva” which means “God of the covenant.”

In other words, both names together mean that “God remembers his covenant,” which is exactly what Zechariah and Elizabeth bore witness to. God was faithful and remembered his covenant by sending John to announce the coming of Christ. In other words, elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth knew life was about a lot more than guns, girls and gold; it is about family, friends and faith. And that is how they raised St. John the Baptist, who lived out in the desert, eating wild locust and honey, dressed in camel’s hair, and where there are no guns, girls or gold.

My friends, soon many of us will spend some time with our grandparents for Christmas. I hope you will make the most of that precious time and not squander or waste it. Why? Well, often we focus on all their limitations and struggles, their weaknesses and inabilities. They are not always adept at the latest technology. They move slow with walkers and canes, and they drive slower than they walk! Their minds may not be as sharp as before and forget what they had for breakfast or who is president.

But instead of focusing or fussing about that – which is really unimportant anyway – ask them to share the one thing you don’t have, namely, the clarity of vision that comes from hindsight. In other words, invite them to share their experiences and adventures and life lessons. Ask them: “After 80 years of kicking up dust on this planet, what have you learned? What is truly important and worth living for? And if you had a chance to live your life again, would you play football in high school?”

I bet every elderly person will have slightly different answers. But all truly thoughtful answers will be a variation of this theme, namely, life is ultimately not about guns, girls and gold, but about family, friends and faith. How you would answer those questions indicates how far you have gotten down the road of life. Why? Because hindsight is twenty-twenty.

                                                            Praised be Jesus Christ!