I suppose I’m old enough to have developed a strong affinity for the holidays of yesteryear. Nothing contemporary can beat them. I came across a cloudy old Polaroid photo the other day of Thanksgiving 1974.
Instantly, I was back there, in the moment. My parents were keen on having family over, and, as usual, had laid out a generous spread. We kids seemed exuberant, the adults pleasant, the food unrivaled by anything else during the year.
I never experienced Thanksgivings quite like those again. Believe me, I’ve tried to reproduce them.
Like a lot of moms and dads, mine seemed magically capable, especially around the holidays.
But just this week, I sat with my mother, whose hands are now crisscrossed with ropy blue veins. She can’t walk without assistance. I’ll be bringing a Thanksgiving plate to her this year. Nor will my dad be zipping around, carrying big turkeys in roasting pans. He has to be careful where he steps, so as not to fall.
Entropy is a faceless, impartial force. It’s all about the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity. Sounds pretty impersonal, doesn’t it? To put it more bluntly, entropy is the general trend of the universe toward death and disorder.
Entropy is cruel.
It’s getting me, too. There’s a slowly mounting number of aches, pains, and abnormalities, portending worse things for the future.
But it won’t win. As Paul once wrote,
“…we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16 NKJV).
In fact, the things that seem to wear us out as we live for Christ only succeed in clarifying the brilliance of the eternal life we have received.
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (v. 17).
When I consult the mirror, I see thinning hair and a boyish face that has all but vanished. I hear sad news about friends who have died before their time. Of parents aging out. Of Thanksgivings that fade with the photo paper they’re printed on.
Entropy is that which we see.
But, “we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (v. 18).
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This is an updated edition of a post originally published on John Myer
Featured Image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay
