RIGHT OF CENTER: REFLECTIONS ON TURNING 30

I've never been big on celebrating birthdays. But as I turn 30 this evening, I find myself reflecting on things I've learned, not through instruction but through experience.

I think 30 is a transitional stage in life. When I was 18, I remember a song by Randy Stonehill called "Turning 30." For the life of me, I can't remember a single lyric from the song, but I'm left with the impression that for the songwriter 30 was an age to greet gladly.

Now that I'm there, I think I know why. The dreams I hold today are grounded in the realism of experience, albeit limited experience. At 30, I am much more familiar with my limitations and capabilities than I was 10 years ago, and I am able to plan the remainder of my life accordingly. I'm settled, and that is a comforting thing.

Most importantly, there are truths that 30 years of experience have impressed on my mind. As this list of tenets grows, my life derives meaning and direction. These are the things I hope to instill in my children as they mature.

-- I am responsible for my actions. There are such things as absolute wrong and absolute right, and when I choose to defy nature, I must take responsibility for whatever ill I reap.

-- I am just as responsible for my reactions. No one can "make me mad." I merely choose to react in anger. Even when wronged, I am never justified by reacting in sin.

-- Marriage is not a 50-50 proposition. Nor is it a 100-100 proposition. It is a 100-x proposition. As long as I devote myself fully to my marriage, I don't have to worry about my wife's reciprocation. It will come eventually.

-- Family is to be cherished above all else except the Creator. No one else better accepts my shortcomings or realizes my potential than family members. No one else is more apt to be there with encouragement when I fail and to chasten me when necessary.

-- Neither ideology, theology nor fashionable opinion should keep me from the pursuit of truth. No one can attain perfect truth, but everyone ought to -- and I must -- pursue it.

-- Language and the meaning of words are truth's brothers. As historian Paul Johnson writes, "Those who treasure the meanings of words will treasure truth, and those who bend words to their purposes are very likely in pursuit of anti-social ones."

-- Each individual is uniquely valuable, not because of his intelligence, abilities or beliefs, but because he is created such, and I must never presume otherwise.

-- Life is a precious gift that not only must be preserved and valued but also tasted in its fullness, rather than merely endured.

-- Work not only is an obligation, but is an opportunity for personal fulfillment that can't be found outside of labor.

-- Children need fathers, and no man truly feels whole until he has fathered. Words cannot describe the utter bliss that derives from the trusting, unconditional love of a child, nor the deep sense of responsibility such love inheres.

-- A loving, long-suffering wife, who is an ardent partner and helpmate, is God's greatest gift and the key to my success.

-- The best gift I can bestow upon my children will be my manifest love for their mother. That is where they get their first lesson in absolutes, and their first glimpse of eternal Love.

-- Love is not an emotion, a feeling I get when I am with someone special. Love is above all an action. It's something I choose to do to fulfill a pledge of commitment, regardless of my feelings.

-- Suffering and hardship are necessary, and pain ought to be embraced. These keep me contrite when I otherwise would boast, and how I react to hardship determines the degree to which my character is elevated.

-- Sin provides fleeting pleasure but leaves a corrupting stain of guilt on the emotions and intellect of the soul.

-- There really is nothing new under the sun, or, in the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again."

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.