[Oe List ...] Earthrise @ 79

Fri Jul 6 11:51:30 PDT 2018

I so appreciate your witness, John and this entire string

I turned 81 on June 11. As I recall the phases, 60-80 was Elderhood and at
80, we enter Sage-hood. . While that implies wisdom, with the memory lapses
I'm experiencing, I feel less, not more wise. On the positive side, staying
in the present moment isn't such a challenge, since I can't remember much
of the past.

Here we go on another adventure around our great Sun. Happy birthday, John.

Jann

On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 4:02 AM Randy Williams via OE <
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> So Lynda, a similar experience. Several years ago when my 2 oldest
> grandsons were about 4 and 6 years old, they were having a day out with
> “Grandy,” their name for me. At a point the younger one, Josh, turns to me
> and says, “Grandy, you sure are big. You eat too much.” The older one,
> Devin, sensing this was not an entirely appropriate thing for Josh to have
> said to his grandfather, retorts. “Josh, he doesn’t eat too much, he’s just
> old.” What a great illustration this would have been in the Christ lecture
> for the moment grace strikes. Josh and Devin are now 23 and 25 year old
> men, but I’m still their Grandy.
> Randy
>
> On Jul 5, 2018, at 7:28 PM, Lynda C via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> wrote:
>
> It’s like the joy of a Senior Discount!  I taught VBS this summer to a
> class of 4 year olds, with the able assistance of Lyndon, our 14 year old
> granddaughter (Jono’s).  One little boy, out of the blue, said, “you are
> really old, aren’t you?”  I smiled and told him he was correct, but I felt
> really young at heart being with such a smart class.
>
>
>
> Lynda  (78)
>
>
>
> *From: *OE <oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of OE List <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> *Reply-To: *OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> *Date: *Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 12:37 AM
> *To: *OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> *Cc: *Paul Schrijnen <pschrijnen at aol.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [Oe List ...] Earthrise @ 79
>
>
>
> A fine reflection John. Thank you.
>
>
>
> What has begun to happen to me is that people on the London Underground
> have started to offer me a seat. As someone born 16 years after you, you
> can imagine the range of feelings that such civility causes. But when this
> happens on the way home from the airport after delivering a 5-day programme
> I am just grateful - glad to get of my feet and rest my weary bones….
>
>
>
> Best wishes to you and all,
>
>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Paul Schrijnen
> 13 Bloemfontein Avenue
> London W12 7BJ
> paul.schrijnen at gmail.com
> +44 7973 206 766
> skype: paulus.schrijnen
>
>
>
>
>
> On 4 Jul 2018, at 22:47, John Epps via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> *Earthrise @ 79*
>
> Recently we were returning from a trip to Kansas and stopped for lunch at
> Denny’s in Limon, Colorado. We’d been watching storm clouds gathering on
> the horizon and were hoping to make it home before they hit. As we were
> leaving, I held the door for an obviously elderly couple – both were
> white-haired, somewhat bent-over, and he had a cane. Walking was a chore
> and pushing open the door would have taxed their capacities. They could
> obviously use some help, so I pushed open the door and held it as they
> struggled through. Then they uttered the words that still jar me: “Thank
> you, sir.” “Sir?” Coming from them? I was taught to use that term to refer
> to those older than I. That statement occasioned an interior rainstorm of
> reflections, including lots of wind, rain, and some hail.
>
> Looking back over the last month, I’ve had more “sirs” thrown at me than
> at my senior year at The Citadel. There it was earned, deserved, and
> welcomed. Here it’s a surprising address heralding the onset of elder-ness
> that I didn’t think I had earned (yet) or deserved, and certainly not
> welcomed. There are plenty of signs, from the number of medications it
> takes to keep going to the diminishing energy and frequent naps. But I have
> ignored those as simply the afflictions of a young man with something gone
> wrong (to use a phrase from JWM).
>
> Reality will not be denied. It breaks through our facades.
>
> This time it drove me to look at a work I’d heard about but never
> examined: “On Holy Living and Dying” by Jeremy Taylor published in 1839 (a
> century before my birth). I turned quickly to the section on Holy Dying.
> Here’s an excerpt. “A person is a bubble…all the world is a storm, and
> people rise up in their several generations…like bubbles descending from
> nature and Providence; and some of these instantly sink into the deluge of
> their first parent, and are hidden in a sheet of water, having had no other
> business in the world but to be born, that they may be able to die: others
> float up and down two or three turns, and suddenly disappear, and give
> their place to others: and those that live longest in the face of the
> waters, are in perpetual motion, restless and uneasy; and being crushed
> with the great drop of a cloud, sink into flatness and a froth; the change
> not being great, it being hardly possible it should be more a nothing than
> it was before. So is everyone….”
>
> This goes on for 10 pages with powerful images and the same message about
> our relative insignificance in the cosmic scheme of things. Somehow, and I
> don’t know how, I found this strangely comforting, and not unsettling as
> one might assume. You just never know where wonder will break through, but
> when it does, it’s well worth celebrating.
>
> John Epps
>
>
>
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