In the Twinkling of an Eye

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” As we now know, we don’t have to wait until the last trumpet to be changed in an instant, because science tells us that approximately 300 million cells die in our body every minute, and they are replaced at a rate of about 2 million per second! Thus we are constantly being changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye!

How do we respond to this remarkable phenomenon? Perhaps we could take a cue from Sr. Dorothy Heideman, in a story relayed by Sr. Susan Barber. Sr. Dorothy asked a visitor where she lived, and the visitor replied, “In Colorado,” and pointed west. Sr. Dorothy said, “I used to live over there” (pointing the the north), “and now I live over here” (pointing to Dooley Center in the south). With an elaborate shrug, she then said, “Whatever!”

We can respond to life’s changes with an eye roll and apathy (muttering “whatever”), or we can greet it with a sense of trust in and excitement about the new things God is doing (exclaiming “whatEVER!”). However, our very bodies are designed to give us practice in letting go of old life and welcoming new life; we would be wise to embrace that ever-present lesson so we are prepared for whatever is to come after our earthly body becomes humus, the humble building block for yet another form of life in God’s creation.