[Oe List ...] Earthrise @ 79

Mon Jul 9 09:16:59 PDT 2018

Good word, Jean. So if we "chose to be chosen," can we also "choose to be
80?" I think so, and in your case, even if you're only 78.
Be well,
Randy

On Mon, Jul 9, 2018 at 9:35 AM, Jean Long via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> What a group!!
> Thanks for your reflections on a wonderful time in life many of us have
> reached.  You can't know what being 80 is like until you get "up in years"
> as my mom would say.  I'm only 78 but I claim 80 because it causes such
> wonder in me. This is me, Jean Long, being 80!!!  I promised myself when I
> was 12 that I would never be "old" like my aunts and uncles sitting in
> their rocking chairs on their farmhouses in Iowa (and they were only in
> their 60's).  ...and I have succeeded.  First thing in the morning, when I
> don't remember yet that  I am 80ish, I can't figure out why my back is so
> stiff.  Except for fibromyalgia, which has weakened my legs I have all my
> faculties.  I wouldn't trade one ache or pain - or the insights that I have
> about life from this plateau - for a young body and the beginning glimmers
> of wisdom of anything younger than 50.
>
> When I think of someone who is 80 I don't think of any of you - Randy,
> Claire, John, Lynda, et al.,   The spirit in all of us - the yes to life we
> demonstrate - allows our presence to be a beacon, a call to something
> different.
>
> We chose to be chosen - and that has made all the difference.
>
> Continued Grace & Peace is yours,
> Jean Long
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 1:51 PM, Jann McGuire via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>> 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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-- 
*"Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't
breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something."*
*--Carl Sagan*
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