Quite a few years ago, I was talking with our children and for some reason I said, “I think 5 is good number for grandchildren. I’d like to have 5 grandchildren.” It was just a kind of a joke at the time. I think I even said, “I don’t care which one of you has how many, but a total of five would be just right.” Our children have been wonderfully amazing for all of their lives, and I would never attempt to tell them how to live. I enjoy them the way that they are and one of the great joys of my life has been watching them grow. As it turned out, I guess that 2 children was exactly the right number for us. I grew up in a family with 7 children and Susan a family with 3, but 2 was just the right number for us.

And now we have 5 grandchildren. It isn’t exactly by design. It is just how things turned out. And last night we went down to Seattle and picked up our daughter and grandson who had flown from their home in South Carolina for a visit. Now all 5 are here in Northwest Washington and as soon as school is out this afternoon we’ll have all 5 of our grandchildren together for the first time. Number 5 is just 4 months old and he will be meeting his South Carolina cousin for the first time.

It’s about the best birthday present I can imagine. Today I am 69. In a week we will celebrate our 49th anniversary.

The years have gone by in ways that I was unable to imagine when I was younger. When we married, I knew that I wanted to have children some day, but I didn’t know that we’d be married 8 years before our first was born. The timing was right for us. We had gotten through graduate school and been called to serve our first parish. We had a couple of years of practical experience under our belts and had acquired enough furniture to have a home. 2 1/2 years later his sister came home and our nuclear family was complete. At least that is what we thought at the time.

Although our families of origin were close, I didn’t realize until our son married how much the spouse of your child become another child of your family. I was more prepared when our daughter married. Now it seems natural that our 2 have become 4, although we never really had just that number. Our first grandchild was born just before our daughter was married, so our family was in a growing mode at the time. So, in a way you could say we now have 4 children and 5 grandchildren. The little family of 4 has become an expanded family of 11, which is a pretty good number.

I don’t really think that one number is better than any other number, but I certainly like the numbers with which we’ve been blessed. And today 69 seems like a good age. For years I said that I wanted to work until I was 70 before I retired, but things didn’t quite work out that way. I was 67 when I retired from full time ministry. Fortunately for me, I got to go back to work as a minister at 68 and it looks like I’ll be serving in this position for a while, perhaps even until I turn 70. From my current perspective, that won’t be a problem. In fact, I might even look for another part-time position when this one comes to its conclusion. After all, 70 is just a number.

I remember attending a 50th wedding anniversary celebration not long after we were married. At the time, as a newlywed, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be married for half a century. 50 years seemed like an eternity - 2 1/2 times as long as I had been alive at the time. Now we’re closing in on that number and in some ways I still feel like a newly-wed. I got really lucky in the marriage department and I get reminded how lucky I am every day just by getting to share life’s adventures with just the 1 I want to be with.

We live in a crazy world with a lot of problems - too many to count. There are challenges and issues at every turn. Earlier this week we watched as a House Select Committee reported to the nation the lengths that a former president went to to subvert democracy and attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in our nation. This weekend we will see a continuation of the poor people’s march on Washington - a process that has been in motion since 1968. That’s 54 years of advancing poverty and stagnated wages for low income workers. Maybe it is a weekend when we will begin to make important changes. When I am in some moods, I can worry extensively about climate change and the world we are leaving to our grandchildren. Floods, fires, more intense storms, increasing numbers of refugees, global migration, pandemic and a host of other realities of this world have connections to our over consumption and our inability to share not just with those with whom we currently share this world, but with those who will come after us. Our country has failed to take reasonable steps to limit gun violence and the slaughter of innocents continues.

In the middle of all of these things, however, I have been blessed beyond my wildest imagination. All 5 together for my 69th. Our 2 under the same roof for a visit. A celebration of 49. And next week we’ll renew our connections with a friend, colleague, and former classmate with whom we’ve shared 48 years of friendship, family and ministry. Our conversations will be as rich and powerful as always.

It all adds up to a million reasons to give thanks. I may not be very advanced in my understanding of math, but I sure do like the numbers.