The Old, the New, and the Not-Yet-Already

This week, I went on a guided tour of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and emergency room. As I sat down to lunch with my new friend in the brand-new cafeteria, I had an amazing experience. It was one of those full-circle, spiraling back-and-out experiences that allow you to reflect on the many stages of your life all at once. It was an instant when I felt the old, the new, and the not-yet-already. I remembered I had been there before and could see how far I had come. Yet I could also peer into the future and glimpse who I was becoming and where I was going, and it all filled me with great joy and contentment.

You see, over 10 years ago when I was a pre-med student studying inorganic chemistry at UCLA Extension, my study group and I would go to the cafeteria to study together on Sundays when it was practically empty. That day as I looked at those same tables where we had studied, I recalled our many fears and anxieties. What questions will be on this exam? Will we pass? Will we get into medical school? Is it all worth it? Yet now as I look back with joy and fondness, I realize my real purpose was not just to study medicine but to prepare to minister grace, healing, and wellness to the whole body, especially in matters of the heart and soul.

The Christmas holiday has many temporal dimensions also. First, there is the old — like the old Christmases we all long for; the ones that color our feelings of what Christmas really is, making us excited, hopeful, or even blue. Yes, we can even grieve at Christmas because the families we remember are no more or never were or because we are not able to experience the kind of Christmas we imagine. Then there are the old Christmas gift lists that will never come again, like the top 10 Christmas gifts of 100 years ago that included candy, nuts, a rocking horse, a doll, and a toy train! Oh, for those good old days!