I turned 25 years old on April 6. That’s a ‘big one,’ as my mom made sure to point out. She didn’t appreciate me pointing out that she now has 25 year old sons. Neither of us left the conversation feeling victorious.
This is the third birthday column I have written for The Journal-News, but it’s been a year since the last one, so I will restate the obvious: I do really love my birthday. My grandfather loved his birthday (May 16) and I have always loved mine.
I also really liked being 24. There was a lot of big moments that came along with it, especially in the last week: the Fighting Illini made the Final Four, I saw “Project Hail Mary” at the Orpheum Theatre (an incredible experience), I watched the Artemis II rocket launch with my dad and brother (“Godspeed,” my dad said quietly, as some of the bravest men and women who ever lived rocketed into the unknown at 25,000 miles per hour, leaving the world behind.) Most significantly, I got married. That was fun, and is fun. I delight in being a husband; the hours spent working on the garbage disposal, not so much.
I still don’t like numbers. My favorite (and most relatable) ‘Full House’ joke is Joey Gladstone admitting he’s numbers-dyslexic. I’d much prefer the subjective nature of art and prose. But humorously as I write, numbers come to mind. Maybe it’s my now fully developed brain. Eli should be proud.
1,300. I ran some 1,300 miles around Hillsboro and Greenville. There’s something about running that I just can’t get enough of, even now that I don’t necessarily have to do it. I raced four times from August to November, kicking off with the beloved Old Settlers four mile, a cross country five mile race, a Turkey Trot 5K and a two mile that reminded me once again I’m not the runner I was at 21, 22, 23.
But I like being the runner I am at 25.
10,000. I’ve driven some 10,000 miles, making the easy commute from Greenville to Hillsboro and racing all over the region for track and cross country races to cheer on my wife as she wraps up her decorated running career. She has driven twice those miles, commuting to nursing school at Goldfarb for twelve hour clinicals and long days in the classroom, yet she also has run double the miles I have in the past year. I have no excuse; she’s a superhero and I’m just Clark Kent.
But I like being Clark Kent.
2,400. I sold a lot of Alpha Candles with Logan Altenberger and I hope we sell another 2,400 this year, our eighth in the candle-making business. In Hillsboro, some people don’t know that I do anything with Alpha Candles; in my wife’s hometown of Lake St. Louis, MO, it seems most people don’t know I do anything besides make soy wax candles all day.
I’d like to clear that up.
I watched some 100 movies when I was 24 years old, from 1975’s “Rollerball” as I painted the new bedroom to 2025’s “Jurassic World Rebirth” at the Skyview drive-in and then 1946’s “It’s A Wonderful Life” on New Year’s Eve, after “When Harry Met Sally” had ended. My favorite watch was “Tombstone;” I’d like to think that like Doc Holliday, I too am “in my prime.”
Sometimes I think I’d like to be a cowboy.
I read 16 books when I was 24, picking up on a habit that I regrettably dropped in high school and college. I read lots of J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as Tim Keller and Lee Strobel, John Feinstein and Luke Epplin, Buddy Levy and John Grisham. I read a lot of the New Testament as well, reading and studying my Bible on a consistent basis for the first time in my life (the Enduring Word commentary is my go-to.)
I cannot count the number of people over the years who have preached to me or told me that reading the Bible would change my life. Finally, last March I started reading my Bible each day and wouldn’t you know it! My life has been changed. I am seeing the goodness of Christ in all the things that I like to write about and the focus has shifted. It’s certainly been reflected in these last year of columns.
Five is the number of how many books I’ve read by C.S. Lewis in the last year, whose writing continues to bring me glimpses of joy and the world to come. I have loved all of them, especially The Space Trilogy, but the most impactful on my 25 years of life comes in the collection of radio addresses in Mere Christianity.
There were a lot of great sections, but what has stuck with me over the last few months is his prominent point of ‘being like little Christs.’ To Lewis, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, beginning with “Our Father,” means that the speaker is placing themselves in the position of a child of God, or more specifically, “dressing up as Christ,” the Son of God, who stands next to you. From there, as in anything one pretends to be, eventually it becomes truth. Christ will remake you into being like Him, a new man, a little Christ, reflecting all the goodness and love and truth and honor and virtue and peace that comes from He. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, that “I have been crucified in Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
It took me 25 years to grasp that in all its weight.To be more like Christ and less like 24-year-old Isaiah, 23-year-old Isaiah, and so on. To put on the new and leave the old behind. To wake up each morning and resist the tidal waves of thoughts and desires and instead pray first to be made more like Christ today.
I’d like that to be me at 25.
100. The percent of life I have left to live ahead of me. So I will saddle up and ride down the road the Lord has put before me, following that Good Shepherd, the greatest cowboy of them all.
Amen. So be it.
