[Oe List ...] Earthrise @ 79

Wed Jul 11 14:41:08 PDT 2018

When I chose racquetball as my choice of aerobic exercise over the boredom of fixtures, there were some who worried that I might fall. This I have done more than once, but as I explained to them, If I “might” fall, I’d rather do it while enjoying something than falling in our home doing nothing interesting.     

From: OE <oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> On Behalf Of Jean Long via OE
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2018 7:35 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>; Jean Long <jean.long512 at gmail.com>
Cc: Jean Long <jean.long512 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Earthrise @ 79

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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> > on behalf of OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> >
Reply-To: OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> >
Date: Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 12:37 AM
To: OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> >
Cc: Paul Schrijnen <pschrijnen at aol.com <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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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