Month: June 2026

“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

— 2 Corinthians 4:16 (New International Version, 2011)

“Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

— Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)

The night my eighteen-year marriage ended, I collapsed in a friend’s home. By the time I regained consciousness, I was in the back of an ambulance. My heart was racing uncontrollably. As I slowly opened my eyes, a paramedic gently wiped away the tear that had been streaming down my face. In that moment, her quiet act of compassion was the only comfort I had known in what felt like the darkest day of my life.

Lying on the gurney in the emergency room, one thought kept recurring and racing through my mind. When I walked out of this hospital, what kind of man would emerge? Time felt suspended and the heaviness of the moments revealed areas of my inner being I had neglected.

As I approach my sixtieth birthday, I realize that day marked the beginning of a different kind of life. Like everyone else, I have watched my body change. My face carries lines that were not there before. My body bears scars earned through the ordinary wear of living. Yet I no longer see them as evidence that life is slipping away. They have become something closer to jewelry, not because they are beautiful in themselves, but because they remind me of what they cost and what they represent. In the grooves of those age lines resides wisdom and a resilient perspective of living life courageously and wisely.

The greatest gift hidden within the violence of that personal moment was the beginning of a new relationship with time. Until then, I had viewed time almost exclusively as a thief. Every passing year meant less youth, fewer opportunities, and another step toward ravages of aging. I measured life by what time had taken from me. I have since come to believe that this is one of life’s great illusions. Time undoubtedly takes away; it wrinkles our skin, slows our bodies, and reminds us that our earthly lives are finite. However, if we pay attention to the work happening beneath the surface, we notice that time is also doing something else. While it gradually diminishes the body, it quietly cultivates the soul. The remainder of this essay explores that paradox through four metaphors, each revealing a different relationship with time.

The Fountain of Youth: Mistaking Youth for Vitality

The opening quotations of this essay capture a profound paradox.

Paul reminds us that “though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). Leonard Cohen offers a complementary image: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Though separated by centuries and expressed through different traditions, both challenge one of humanity’s oldest assumptions, that the decline of the body must also mean the decline of the person.

For centuries, humanity has been captivated by the legend of the Fountain of Youth. A mythical spring whose waters promised to restore youth and postpone aging. Although we dismiss it as folklore, perhaps we have never stopped searching. We have exchanged mythical waters for modern substitutes: cosmetic procedures, anti-aging products, fitness regimes, and the relentless pursuit of looking younger, looking perfect, while ignoring the development of our inner landscapes/soul.

Caring for our bodies is good and necessary; the body is a gift worthy of gratitude and stewardship. The illusion begins when we mistake physical youth for true vitality and assume that when one fades, the other must fade as well.

Paul offers a radically different vision. While the body inevitably yields to time, the inner life remains capable of continual Renewal. Time may weaken our muscles, soften our features, and etch lines across our faces. Still, it also presents daily opportunities for the soul to become more compassionate, more humble, more courageous, and more faithful.

Cohen carries the paradox one step further. Renewal seldom occurs despite our brokenness; it often begins because of it. The cracks created by disappointment, grief, failure, and loss become openings through which wisdom, empathy, and grace enter our lives. We make extraordinary efforts to prevent those cracks from appearing, yet they may become the very places where our deepest transformation begins.

Perhaps this is the real illusion of youth.

The Soul Speaks the Language of Slow Cooking

If the Fountain of Youth symbolizes our desire to escape time, then slow cooking reminds us that some of life’s greatest treasures are created only by time.

We live in an age of immediacy. We expect information in seconds, meals in minutes, packages overnight, and success as quickly as possible. Our vocabulary is filled with words like instant, on-demand, and real-time. We have become so accustomed to speed that waiting often feels like failure.

The soul, however, refuses to live by those rules.

Unlike the hurried rhythms of modern life, the soul speaks a different language. It speaks the language of seasons rather than seconds, cultivation rather than consumption, and becoming rather than achieving. It cannot be rushed, downloaded, or optimized. It matures quietly, often unnoticed, through ordinary days faithfully lived.

Anyone who has prepared a meal using a slow cooking technique understands this paradox. Time is not the enemy of the meal; it is one of its essential ingredients. Under low, steady heat, what is tough gradually becomes tender. Individual ingredients surrender their independence, blending into something richer than they could ever become on their own. The transformation is invisible from one hour to the next, yet unmistakable by the end.

The inner life unfolds in much the same way.

Compassion rarely emerges from comfort. Patience is seldom born from convenience. Humility is not learned in moments of applause, nor is wisdom acquired through shortcuts. These qualities require time, disappointment, forgiveness, perseverance, and countless opportunities to begin again. The soul is renewed not by dramatic moments alone, but by the quiet accumulation of faithful choices made over years.

This is why our culture’s obsession with immediacy is so spiritually conflicting. We have become remarkably efficient at saving time while often neglecting the patient work of allowing time to shape us. We seek quick solutions for what are ultimately lifelong questions. We measure growth by visible results rather than invisible formation.

Yet Paul reminds us that “though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). Renewal is not described as sudden or spectacular. It is daily. Gradual. Patient. Like a meal slowly simmering, the work of God within us is often imperceptible in the moment but profound over a lifetime.

Perhaps this is why genuine vitality belongs not to those who move through life the fastest, but to those who allow life to do its slow work within them. While the body inevitably yields to time, the soul can become increasingly alive, generous, compassionate, hopeful, and more deeply rooted in love.

The illusion of youth tells us that vitality is synonymous with speed, strength, and physical vigour. The slow work of the soul tells a different story. The deepest vitality is cultivated patiently. It is not found in resisting time but in allowing time, grace, and faithful perseverance to transform us into people whose richest life is found within.

Perhaps the soul has never been interested in keeping pace with the world. Perhaps it has always been inviting us to slow down long enough to become.

Kintsugi: Time, Scars, and the Soul

The Japanese art of kintsugi offers one of the most beautiful images of Renewal I have encountered. When a treasured bowl or cup breaks, the artisan does not discard it or attempt to hide its fractures. Instead, each broken piece is carefully repaired using lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The cracks remain visible. In fact, they become the most striking feature of the vessel. Its history is not concealed but honoured. Its brokenness becomes part of its beauty. For an exceptional video explaining Kintsugi, see the video with Dr. Alexa Altman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQW8t6w0Cy4).

Kintsugi reminds us that restoration is not the same as perfection.

This is where Leonard Cohen’s words are meaningful:

“Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

The crack is not beautiful simply because it exists. Every fracture represents something real—a disappointment, a betrayal, a loss, a failure, or the slow realization that our bodies cannot escape time. Left unaddressed, cracks can harden into bitterness, resentment, or despair. But when met with patience, grace, and healing, they become openings through which compassion, humility, and wisdom quietly enter.

Paul expresses the same truth from a different perspective:

“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Notice what Paul does not say. He does not promise that Renewal restores our youth, erases our scars, or returns us to an earlier version of ourselves. The body continues to age. The cracks remain. Renewal is not the recovery of perfection; it is the transformation of the person.

Perhaps this is what both Paul and Cohen understood. Life’s deepest work is not found in avoiding brokenness but in allowing grace to reshape us through it. The goal is not to become flawless but to become more fully human—more compassionate because we have suffered, more patient because we have waited, more forgiving because we have needed forgiveness ourselves.

The Japanese artisan does not erase the vessel’s history; the gold honours it. Likewise, our scars need not become symbols of shame. They can become witnesses to endurance, evidence of healing, and reminders that grace has been quietly at work within us.

Perhaps this is the picture of Renewal.

Time leaves its marks upon our bodies.

Scars remind us of where life has broken us.

But the soul, when surrendered to grace, becomes increasingly alive.

The illusion of youth tells us that beauty belongs to the unmarked and the unbroken. Kintsugi tells a different story. The most beautiful life is not the one that escaped the fractures of time, but the one in which those fractures have been patiently filled with grace.

The Sandbox

For the next seven evenings, before you turn out the light and settle into bed, pause for a few moments and reflect on this simple truth:

The body ages because of time. The soul matures because of how we respond to time.

Every day that passes leaves its mark on us. The question is not whether time is changing you—it is. The deeper question is how it is changing you.

Then ask yourself:

What did today add to my soul that time can never take away?

Don’t think about what you accomplished, earned, or accumulated. Instead, reflect on who you became.

Were you a little more patient?

A little more compassionate?

A little more courageous?

A little more forgiving?

A little more alive?

If you struggle to answer, don’t be discouraged. The question itself is part of the slow work of becoming. Awareness always precedes transformation.

The true measure of a day is not simply that time has passed, and we were productive with our to-do lists. It is whether time has transformed us. While the body inevitably bears the marks of passing years, the soul bears the marks of the choices we make each day. Time may leave us with more wrinkles, but it can also leave us with greater wisdom, deeper compassion, and a heart more fully alive.

May tomorrow add something to your soul that time cannot erode easily.

 In Love,

  Finney

We encounter truth in countless ways. Ordinary moments reveal it. Familiar conversations uncover it. At times, truth arrives gently, almost unnoticed, and touches us before we understand what has happened. At other times, truth crashes into us. It dismantles assumptions we scarcely knew we held. Whether truth whispers through reflection or strikes through disruption, it wakes us.

One afternoon, I sat in a parkette surrounded by high-end boutique stores and high-rise residences. Over coffee, I noticed a woman in a burgundy sundress. She stood near a cement pillar and took photos and videos of an elaborate Inuksuk, a balanced pile of stones she had arranged with obvious care. She spoke and laughed loudly to herself. She twirled and danced around the structure. She admired it from different angles. Her joy filled the space around her as she mimicked a photoshoot with a live model.

Pedestrians were concerned about her “odd” behaviour. A mother took her child’s hand and drew her close to her side as they passed, giving her a wide berth. Some crossed to the other side of the street to avoid her. “She seemed unaware of the verdicts being quietly rendered by the passing jury of strangers.” Her attention belonged entirely to her masterpiece. I envied her indifference to others’ reactions. For most of my life, I sought external validation and became proficient in the cowardice of pleasing others.

The Inuksuk did not first draw me in. She did. Her well-kept appearance, burgundy sundress, and new large iPhone stood in sharp contrast to her behaviour. I watched her because I could not easily place her in any category. I admired her freedom. She seemed unfazed by the judgment of strangers, while I had spent much of my life crippled by it. Paying the cost of cowardice

Her whole being radiated content self-absorption and joyous energy. She had made something, and for that brief stretch of time, she celebrated it without apology.

Then she moved toward the Inuksuk.

For a moment, I assumed she wanted one more photograph. Instead, she began to dismantle it. Her movements were deliberate. One stone fell. Then another. Then another. Within seconds, the structure she had praised, photographed, and danced around lay scattered at the base of the pillar.

Her actions startled me. They also exposed me.

I realized how tightly I cling to what cannot last. I cling to achievements, as though success can outrun time. I cling to possessions, as though ownership can make anything permanent. I cling to identity, reputation, plans, and even the people and animals I love most, as though love can spare them from loss. Yet everything earthly stands under the same sentence: temporary.

The woman seemed to understand what I often resist. The stones mattered, but they were not eternal. The process mattered, but it was not permanent. The joy mattered, even though the structure would not survive the afternoon. She built it. She celebrated it. She released it.

That sequence felt almost sacred.

Life must be framed by this awareness of impermanence. Without it, we become spectators. We wait for perfect conditions. We postpone affection. We protect ourselves from disappointment by withholding our full presence. We move through life half-awake, trying to preserve what was never ours to keep.

Impermanence changes that. It urges us to love with more passion, not less. It teaches us to enter our work with greater devotion rather than detachment. It asks us to honour the people we meet, the projects we touch, and the moments entrusted to us because each one will pass.

The magic is not that anything lasts forever. The magic is that temporary things can still carry eternal weight.

For me, that truth points toward God. Achievements fade. Possessions break. Bodies weaken. Pets die. Loved ones leave this earth. Even our proudest creations eventually fall stone by stone. What endures is faith in the love of an eternal God and the legacy of relationships we cultivate while we are here.

The woman’s Inuksuk did not last. It was never meant to last. Yet because she created it with joy, honoured it with attention, and released it with freedom, it became more than a pile of stones. It became a sermon without words.

As I left the park that afternoon, I realized that the lesson was never about a pile of stones. It was about the paradox that lies at the heart of the human experience. We spend our lives trying to preserve what time inevitably takes away, believing permanence gives things value. Yet perhaps their value lies precisely in their impermanence.

Perhaps the greatest paradox of impermanence is this: what does not last often deserves our deepest attention. The awareness that our days, our relationships, and our accomplishments are temporary should not diminish our love for life; it should deepen it. Knowing that nothing in this world lasts forever ought to make us more passionate in our living, more intentional in our loving, and less willing to let familiarity blind us to the preciousness of what we have. Gratitude flourishes when we remember that every moment is a gift, not a guarantee. When we cease taking life for granted, we begin to cherish it more fully.

In love,

Finney