Birthdays, Belly Buttons and Trips Around the Sun

I grow pensive every time I have a birthday. The date serves as a marker for me, not just for the passage of time, but as a moment for me to look back and remember the previous year. I take stock, weigh good decisions and bad ones and try to make sense of where I find myself at the present as I lick icing from my fingers.

Commonly, this degree of introspection is referred to as “navel gazing” (or “omphaloskepsis”). The term is often used in a negative light to indicate self-absorption, but I must say, on one’s birthday, maybe navel gazing is a good practice.

Literal navel gazing.

I just took a peek at mine; it’s a birthday tradition.

I can hear you now: “That’s weird. Why would you do that?"

On this very day, years ago, I took my first gasping breath as I squirmed and cried while being held aloft in the hands of a doctor. Moments later the physical tether between mother and son was severed, and I still bear the scar, and I will for as long as I live. It means I was born, that I am human, and that being human, my body will one day die.

It’s all there: family, birth, life, and death.

It’s all wrapped up in that little scar.

And year after year each of us celebrates the scar, and we celebrate everyone else’s as well. “Happy Birthday!” we sing and shout, but what we’re really saying is, “We’re glad you’re here with us now. We’re thankful that we share life together. We’re happy you were born. We’re glad you have a navel.”

And so I contemplate life. Looking back over the last year, were there mistakes? Oh, yes. Victories? Certainly. Moments I would love to live again? Definitely. Moments I never want to repeat? Yes.

Moments come…linger…and then pass. They move on, and we must decide to take a lesson from those moments and move on too. There are a finite number of birthdays for each of us during our earthly lifespans. I once read that you can never add time to your life, but you can add life to your time. When we realize the brevity and value of life - and all the more valuable because of the brevity - we will spend it wisely.

I pray for more wisdom in the next trip around the sun, and then I will glance down again and celebrate (God willing) another year of life full of laughs and tears, dreams and prayers, new and old friends, and 365 days of grace that Jesus has used to make me more like himself.

A dear friend was recently awaiting his own son to make his grand appearance into this big, blue world of ours. When that miraculous moment came, that little man-cub received his first, longest lasting scar, and we celebrated.

Whether today is your birthday or not, take a moment, glance down, and be thankful for your navel. It’s a little reminder that, no matter how the last year has gone, we’re in this together as we bear common scars while the world keeps turning.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).