As a community building exercise at a recent meeting, we were asked to introduce ourselves by telling one thing about ourselves that others probably don’t know. I’ve received that kind of instructions before and it is pretty easy for me to bring up things that are previously unknown about me in a group of people who have known me for only a couple of years. It is obviously a task that is easier when one is 70 than at age 17. I’ve had a lot of experiences.

I chose to report that I earned my private pilot’s license when I was 17. Since I quit flying as pilot in command in my forties, there have been a lot of years since I have done that activity. There was one slide in the pictures shown at our 50th anniversary of our family in front of an airplane, but unless you knew what you were looking for, it would be easy to assume that the plane was piloted by someone else. Had I not used that bit of information, there are a lot of other things that probably are not known by those who participated in the meeting.

My high school mascot was the Sheepherder.
My first car was an Opel Kadette.
My two youngest brothers are the biological children of my oldest sister
I used to have a hang glider
I have taught wind surfing at a water sports camp
I was a school bus driver
I worked as a radio DJ
I know how to re-cain and re-do rush bottom chairs
I used to be an emergency care technician and drove an ambulance
I never graduated from high school

I could probably come up with a much longer list if I spent some time thinking. I suspect that most readers of my journal can find at least one item on the list that they had not previously known. I write about a lot of things, but I certainly haven’t covered every possible topic of my life’s story. Personal essays are not memoirs.

It was fun to listen to the other participants in the meeting and learn small bits of information about them. I didn’t know this person had lived in Wales or that person had raised a godson. I think most of the people in the room came up with things that I did not know. All of the other participants are people that I have known for less than three years.

The exercise got me to thinking, however, about the list of things that I enjoy doing. I enjoy hanging out at airports and flying in airplanes. I enjoy making canoes and kayaks. I enjoy solo paddling. I enjoy sailing. I enjoy tinkering with repairs for our camper. I enjoy traveling on the airlines to distant locations. I enjoy road trips. I enjoy eating new foods and experiencing new cultures. That list, too, could go on and on. What struck me as I thought about that list, however, is that while I once thought that I would have time to do a lot of things in my life, the remaining years of my life are not long enough for some things. I probably won’t have another job that I retain for 25 years. I probably won’t live in any other place for as long as we lived in our Rapid City home. I’m unlikely to go back to flying airplanes as a pilot. I probably won’t have need of a commercial driver’s license again.

Turning 70 has meant for me that it is time to set some priorities. That doesn’t mean that I will stop dreaming. Nor will I easily slow down my activities. I’m still going to be a person who is usually juggling many different interests and ideas. I want to be a storyteller, boatbuilder, trumpet player, handbell ringer, fund-raiser, teacher, writer, preacher, habitat volunteer, library organizer. Still, I have to admit, if at least to myself, that there are some things that I am unlikely to accomplish in this lifetime.

I used to tell others that ministry is in part the art of leaving the office with your work undone. Being a minister involves so many different tasks that there is always a list of things to do. There is always one more call that could be made, one more book that could be read, one more person to whom communion could be taken, one more meeting for which to prepare, one more committee in need of leadership. Once, when I was a bit overwhelmed with a job that was fairly new to me, I asked my predecessor how he got all of the work done. He replied that he didn’t get all of the work done. That answer was reassuring to me over the next years as I tried hard and left work undone.

Now my life is like my career. I know that there are things that I won’t get done in this life. I am willing to accept those limitations, but I think it is unlikely to keep me from having a lot of projects. Like the unread books in my library, I find it a bit reassuring that I have more than enough projects to last a lifetime. From where I find myself now it seems highly unlikely that I will have an extended period of boredom in this life. I’ve got enough books that I won’t run out and I have enough things I want to try that I should still have a to do list when I come to the last day of my life.

I’ve met people who seemed to have all of the loose ends of their lives all tied up. I don’t expect to ever achieve that level of neatness. When I discover a dirty dish after I have started the dishwasher, I just think, “O well, there’s seed for the next crop.” I’m content to go to bed with almost all of the dishes done. It doesn’t bother me to have a glass in the skink that I’ll deal with the next morning.

I’m pretty sure that I will be able to come up with things about me that are unknown to other gatherings. I may even add a few new ones in the days to come.