One of my favorite Country artists is Kenny Chesney, and there’s a beautiful song that he has called “Don’t Blink.” And that’s the song I want to use to kind of look at our new year, and especially to look at how Mary is able to take in this wonderful Christmas, this birth of her son, and how she is able to take all these things in and reflect on them and ponder them in her heart. So I am going to read to you the lyrics to “Don’t Blink,” and I just want you to think about your new year.
I turned on the evening news
Saw a old man being interviewed
Turning a hundred and two today
Asked him what’s the secret to life
He looked up from his old pipe
Laughed and said “All I can say is.”
Don’t blink
Just like that you’re six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you’re twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife.
Don’t blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your better half
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you’re praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think.
Don’t blink
I was glued to my TV and it looked like he looked at me and said
“Best start putting first things first.”
Cause when your hourglass runs out of sand
You can’t flip it over and start again
Take every breathe God gives you for what it’s worth.
Don’t blink
I’ve been trying to slow it down
I’ve been trying to take it in
In this here today gone tomorrow world we’re living in.
Don’t blink
I think the wonderful thing about Mary is, and we celebrate this in the Feast of the Mother of God in her contemplative of stance at the world. The reality that she was able to take all of these things in and treasure them in her heart.
We hear in the Gospel today that shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem to find Mary and Joseph and the infant lying a manger. So you have to imagine. This birth is going on, shepherds are coming in. They are coming in haste. They’ve got their sheep there. The angels are appearing. There’s all these wonderful, crazy things happening. It’s wild. And Mary is able to stop for a moment and to take it all in. And we hear the phrase in the Gospel, “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”
The truth is life flies by. And I know already at my age every year goes faster than the next. And Father Martello, who is even older than I, says that as you get older, you know, the years go by even faster. And the truth is life does go by like that.
So don’t blink.
The idea is that we can try to take in all the moments of our lives. So especially as we begin this new year, just try to appreciate our families, try to appreciate our loved ones, try to appreciate every moment we have here at the Eucharist, to try to take in the Word of God, to try to take in all the grace, all the wonderful things that happen, hold them in our hearts and treasure them because life goes so fast.
So don’t blink.
