Jenny Kissed me!
Here’s what I think. I think many of us Christian types look at a world that sings like a happy drunk and dances like a dervish and we think we’re missing out on life. I think we console ourselves with the thought that while in this life we’re miserable (we’re supposed to be, right?) but one day we’ll be rewarded for being miserable for Christ’s sake. What a tragic view of Christ, what a tragic view of his intentions and what a tragic view of life as it even now lies before us. (I do recognize that there are lonely and oppressed people for whom life in its entirety will always be pain. Of these poor souls I have nothing to say just at this moment. This is for those of us who despite troubles and heartache are richly blessed in life.)
Leigh-Hunt, with the heart of a romantic and eyes to see where the profound riches of life are to be discovered wrote something that the blessed but blind among us would do well to reflect on.
Jenny kiss’d me when we met
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, you love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.
Don’t you love that? Unless you’re one of those that snarl, "Bah humbug" when romance is talked about you’ll surely smile with pleasure at Leigh-Hunt’s joy. Whatever else he missed, whatever he went without, no matter about failing health, loss of independence, economic hardship or living and dying in obscurity and feebleness—none of it changed this one mesmerizing truth and life-defining experience, Jenny kissed him.
People would watch him growing old and getting feebler but every now and then they’d catch him smiling to himself and they’d wonder why.
He’s remembering.
To have one Jenny and every bit as important—to be able to recognize that Jenny when you meet her; to have the heart that can see Jenny in that light means a man can die rich and happy.
I know there's more to be said, I know there are tough questions that warrant answers but those are subjects for another time. Not now! Not for millions of us! We're too blessed to pretend we're victims, too rich in lovely and uplifting experiences to pretend we've been robbed. We won't do it! For me personally, to know that "Ethel kissed me" and for fifty-three years loved me however much a failure I've been means I have absolutely no grounds for taking out my pains and losses and making them the entire story of my life. Other poor souls will come to God when it's all over and show him hands that were worn out with work since they were boys or girls and they'll tell him their sad stories. I won't be able to do that and my suspicion is that the most of all who might read this will feel the same.
Filled with joy and the romance of life and the Christian adventure GK Chesterton would say things like, "One Sun is splendid: six Suns would be only vulgar. One Tower of Giotto is sublime: a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of nature, in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love, in following the single woman; the poetry of religion, in worshipping the single star."
To know one lovely child, to have one glorious friend, to experience one glorious day, to do one glorious and selfless deed in one glorious and selfless moment of sheer unadulterated generosity—that’s living!
To know one God, one Lord Jesus Christ and one Spirit in whom the Father and Son have eternal fellowship—that’s life eternal. A man or woman, boy or girl can die rich like that.
Others in their millions will come before God after a life of ceaseless soul-crushing poverty, abuse—crushed and empty. I won't! I won't because I can't. I have two lovely sons and a lovely daughter and some friends who came into my life and stayed. I have some enemies—some of them I've earned, but all in all I've been blessed beyond measure by Him who gave his all for the entire human family (and for me as part of it). That would be and is enough! But from His generous hand I got a bonus:
"Ethel kissed me."
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.