Five Years

We've got five years, what a surprise

We've got five years, stuck on my eyes

We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot

Five years, that's all we've got

Nadia Bolz-Weber, one of my favorite theologians, recently posted a blog titled “Ziggy Stardust and the Future of the Church”.  I was intrigued for a variety of reasons.  One, as some of you know, I left the church about three years ago.  I was curious what Nadia had to say about the future of the church.  Two, I would read absolutely anything she writes, she is one of the most honest, down to earth theologians I’ve ever read.  Three, and maybe most importantly, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” by David Bowie was the second album I ever owned, and since that was way back in 1972 when I was 12 years old, I probably listened to it at least once a day, since, well, when you only have two albums, and the internet hadn’t been invented yet, what else were you going to do?  Yes, as usual, I digress.

The blog centers on Bowie’s song “Five Years”, which is an apocalyptic vision of the world only having five more years left.  It runs through the emotions of how we would react, what would we do, what would be important if we knew we only had five more years to live our lives?

The purpose of the blog was to call out the church for all that it does, or doesn’t do, in the name of longevity or trying to maintain a relevance or purpose.  Even though Nadia is a Lutheran minister, she had some harsh words for the church.  As she notes, people are leaving the church in droves, and not because they don’t believe in the beauty of Jesus Christ and his teaching, but because they can’t sit back and be a part of an institution that pretends to hold firmly to that principle.  Unfortunately, I feel the same way, which is the reason I left the church, and to be honest, I think my faith and spirituality have grown considerably since then.

If we knew we only had five years left, how would we act differently?  Would we enjoy our experience more, would we embrace each other more, would we be more welcoming?  Would we quit worrying about the numbers, we added 50 new members this year!  Would we stop the politics, quit fine tuning our various rules and regulations, quit arguing over who does or doesn’t get into heaven, quit hating whatever group we choose to hate that day?  Would we simply love each other more and accept each other for who they/we are, would we maybe…. really love our neighbor?  

It reminded me, on the business side, Eli Goldratt took a similar approach in his book, “The Goal”.  In that setting, the leadership came in from corporate and told the plant manager, “You have six months to turn this place around, or we’re shutting it down.”  If you have just six months, what would you do, what would be important?  I often felt we should have taken this approach in various business scenarios, if we had to really focus on what was most important, what would we work on?

I thought about all of the various meetings and discussions we have at work, and really, how relevant are all of those?  I remember when I was at Barco or WIKA, we would spend hour upon hour preparing for Profit Plan meetings, or SML meetings, and then we would sit and talk all day about what we had done and what we planned to do.  I still remember many years ago, and it was funny, but maybe not, Al Herman, a wonderful man I worked with at Barco, made the mistake in one of those meetings of sending an e-mail where he stated, “I’m in a Profit Plan meeting, where all hope has gone to die”.  Unfortunately, Al hit copy all when he sent the e-mail, so everyone saw how he felt.  To be honest, probably 90% of the people agreed with him.  There were so many meetings I felt the same way, why don’t we spend eight hours doing the work, and one hour talking about it, rather than just the opposite?  

And now, it takes me to our Faculty Senate meetings at school.  Same story, different venue.  At least at this stage in my career, if a student wants to meet with me, and it conflicts with Faculty Senate, I meet with the student.  I didn’t have that luxury in my business career, and I may not have that luxury here, but I really don’t care, my students come first.

We were given this opportunity a few years ago, in a much smaller way, in this case related to our first dog, Snickers.  We took Snickers to the vet, and the vet told us that Snickers’ internal organs were shutting down, there was nothing that we could do, he probably had a few weeks or a month left to live.  Essentially they were right, but they missed by about 11 months, Snickers made it about a full year before we had to mercifully put him down.

It may sound crazy, but it was such a beautiful experience for us.  Since we thought Snickers had very little time left, so many things became important, while others lost their importance.  We let him wander the backyard a lot more, not worrying about hurrying him back in.  We let him eat lots of snacks and treats, we put chicken broth on his dog food, we didn’t really worry if he put on a few pounds.  We didn’t yell at him when he did something wrong, we just let it go.  We just enjoyed our time with him, and tried to help him enjoy his time that was left.  We had a wonderful year with Snickers, probably the most enjoyable, at least for us, we just loved him.

If and when our time is limited, what becomes important?  What would you do, if you knew we only five years left?  How would you lead your life?  I thought about it, and I put together a short list.  I would:

• Spend as much time as I could with Laurel, there is no one’s company that I enjoy more.
• Spend more time with my children, I unfortunately was one of those people who lived the Harry Chapin song, “Cats in the Cradle”, I was never there for my children, and I’d love to be there for them now, but their lives are busy now of course.
• Do as much yoga as possible.  One of the greatest gifts that I’ve been given and given myself.
• Read.  I was blessed early in life to enjoy reading, I probably went away from it for a time, but I’ve come to embrace it again, I love to read.
• Enjoy everything about nature.  God gave us a beautiful planet, and there’s so much to see, really, right out in our backyard.
• Smile more, be more patient with people, talk to strangers, listen better.
• Spend time with friends, probably the area, many of us, or at least me, neglect the most.

What would you do?  I’m sure I missed a lot, what would you do if we only had five years?  I know to a great extent, it’s irrational for most of us, except for old people like me, to envision what we would do if we only had five years left, but maybe, just maybe, we could work it into our daily practice.  While I’m still falling short on many of the items on the list above, I do my fair share of yoga, I read every day, and we go for walks every day and enjoy seeing the geese, ducks, rabbits, flowers, whatever nature has to offer that day.  Oh, and I’m pretty sure Laurel is seeing plenty of me each day, probably much more than she’d like to, I’m afraid…

Maybe it’s just a little progress, but I’ll take it.  Hopefully I can make a dent in the rest of the list as time goes on.  And I sure hope I don’t need someone to come down to Earth to tell me I only have five years to get it done.