On March 22 a minute of silence was ordered across Sri Lanka as the science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke was buried in the capital city. He had told friends he wanted as an epitaph:
"Here lies Arthur Clarke. He never grew up but didn't stop growing."
I do not know whether those words will actually appear on his tombstone, but they gave me pause for thought. Here was a man who asked for no political pomp or religious rites, but his final words speak volumes to me about the human spirit and about my own Christian faith.
As a child I couldn't wait to "grow up." Each birthday I fully expected to be taller than I had been the day before when I was a year younger. It took a few years before I realized that a new number did not bring added inches. I also was concerned about what else being a grown-up might entail. That "up" seemed some sort of stratosphere where there would be no bedtimes or homework. It was also the realm of adult conversations from which I was regularly excused.
I still remember vividly the night my family was listening to a radio program. (I was a child in a non-TV world). The program reached the "good part" at my usual bedtime, and nothing was said. I stayed until the end—9:30pm—and I hugged myself to realize that I was reaching into the grown-up world. This was step one.
It was years later before I realized that the self I was bringing into the adult world was very much the same self I had had in my child's world. The process was never going to be complete. I would never be fully grown up.
And this is where I so identified with Clarke's promise to not stop growing. The dullest and the saddest people in the world are those who are some age—often much to young—say: "This is as far as I am going. This is me." All adventure, all sense of the new, all impetus to go on learning, exploring, enjoying come to a halt.
While we might choose different epitaphs from Clarke's, his words remain as a daily challenge. Let's get on with the growing. |