The glamorous couple in this photo are Lynn and Glenda Vowell. The baby in Glenda’s arms is her firstborn child, a daughter, my sister-in-law Tawni. Lynn is meeting Tawni for the first time, because he was away on a detachment from the Naval Air Station on Guam when she was born. Unbelievably, Glenda – cinched waist, high heels, perfect hair and all – had delivered Tawni just 48 hours before.
I never knew Lynn and Glenda as they look in that photo. The debonair pilot and girl-next-door starlet had lived into the life chapter of grandparenthood by the time I met them; they’ve been home with the Lord for two and half years now. But for some reason that photo is on my mind this week.
Perhaps it’s because it’s Mark’s birthday today? He, too, was born while his parents were stationed on Guam – just nineteen months after Tawni. All the photos of his early life have a similar patina: tropical military base setting, gorgeous young parents, clothes and hairstyles evocative of a different time. Mark’s birthday always makes me gratefully remember – and now sorely miss – Lynn and Glenda.
Or perhaps it’s because Maggie’s birthday is coming up Monday? Maggie has Mark’s eyes, and Mark has Lynn’s eyes … sometimes I see Lynn laughing – literally – when Mark and Maggie are sharing a joke. Also, increasingly, Maggie’s emerging woman-beauty reminds me of Glenda’s in her youth – high voltage energy and joy and sparkle common between them – another probable prompt toward the photo.
Jesus once taught about birthdays. Nicodemus – public figure, Sanhedrin member, erudite Jew – came to Jesus by night to ask questions about the Kingdom of God. Jesus’s answers baffled Nicodemus, because they were all about birthdays:
3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
(John 3:3 – 16)
Reflecting this weekend on birthdays, I confess I am comforted by Jesus’s re-definition. Birthdays, celebrated purely as dates on the calendar that commemorate the start of independent physical life, point to the finite span any of us will have on the planet. The more birthdays you celebrate, the fewer birthdays you have ahead of you – that’s the math of worldly aging, and it can make birthdays bleak. But in Jesus’s “born again” calculus, the calendar ceases to matter. The re-birth-day marks a beginning that has no conclusion. The re-birth-day launches “eternal life”.
Jesus’s “born again” calculus adds back in all who have been lost to us, too. Lynn and Glenda – and so many, many beloved saints in my life and yours – are missing from birthday celebrations this year. But the re-birth we share in Jesus Christ means that our missing is circumscribed. We WILL all be together again; we WILL celebrate without the specter of separation to shadow our joy.
The prophet Isaiah, prescient on so many Christ-specifics, casts a vision for the Heavenly feast that will truly be the “re-birth-day party” of all God’s children:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
(Isaiah 25:6 – 8a)
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces…
When Glenda was alive, one of the ways she showed love to her family was by feeding us very, very well. She was a fantastic cook! Her yeast “pinch rolls” at Thanksgiving, her Christmas brisket, and her pies were standouts – but everything she made was good. Mark, not a big dessert fan, loved his Mama’s cherry pie. So Tawni makes him cherry pies, now, from Glenda’s recipe. She brought him one last night, to celebrate his birthday. His pleasure – and hers – were a beautiful tribute to Glenda’s enduring legacy of love… and, not coincidentally, a foretaste of future feasts (with Glenda!) in Heaven.
Happy birthday, Mark! Happy birthday, Maggie!
