1,577,836,800 Seconds

(Give or Take a Few)

If you like smaller numbers, how about “L”? Or, to wax poetic, one half of a century.

However, you slice it, that’s approximately how long I’ve been drawing breath here on God’s green earth. My grandparents’ births all preceded Kitty Hawk and three of the four lived to at least see man land on the moon. Both grandmothers stuck around to usher in the beginnings of the home computer age and one even endured long enough to see her eldest grandson graduate from seminary and enter the pastoral ministry. Actually, if I’d gone straight through school without interruptions, detours, and delays, both Grandma Grossmann and Grandma Snyder would have witnessed that joyous event.

Until I fell on the ice on Monday evening, most of me didn’t really feel like I was on the verge of my fiftieth birthday. Now, my left shoulder and back join my knees in assuming that I was born not only before the Space Age but perhaps even before the Indoor Plumbing Age.

I say this not to cage birthday gifts (although heartfelt letters written on the backs of commemorative fifty dollar bills might be considered most appropriate). Instead, I want this to be my opportunity to thank family, friends, members of the congregations which I have been privileged to serve, and everyone who’s read or submitted questions to Ask the Pastor for gifts of family, friendship, prayers, and every kindness, great and small.

Technorati Tags: Walter P. Snyder | Walter Snyder | Pastor Walter Snyder | Pastor Snyder | birthday | 50th birthday | fiftieth birthday | fifty years | fifty years old | happy birthday | January 16 | January 16, 1957 | 16 January | 16 January 1957