<HTML><HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: #000000">
<DIV>John, Thank you for your reflection and the many comments it has
catalyzed. I am, now 83 just approaching 84! I wonder if responses
and thoughts on the aging process aren’t in some way due to exposed nerve
endings resulting from the latest turn in our culture taking place under
Trump?</DIV>
<DIV> And perhaps represents a nostalgic longing to “get out
of this mess.”</DIV>
<DIV>How? By simply falling back on the comforting realization that we
won’t be around to “see the results.” And we no longer have the energy to
throw ourselves into the battle for “A better world?!”</DIV>
<DIV> I certainly experience a pervading fatigued as as my
wife and I try to engage in the current political struggles and charitable
demands.</DIV>
<DIV> Thank you for starting all the reflections.</DIV>
<DIV>Rod Rippel</DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt tahoma">
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>John Epps via OE</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, July 04, 2018 2:47 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>OE</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=jlepps39@gmail.com>John Epps</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Oe List ...] Earthrise @ 79</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'
align=center><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt">Earthrise @
79<SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'>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.<SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'>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). <SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'>Reality
will not be denied. It breaks through our facades.<SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'>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….”<SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'>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.<SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style='FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman",serif; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal'><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">John Epps</SPAN><BR></P><BR></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
_______________________________________________<BR>OE mailing
list<BR>OE@lists.wedgeblade.net<BR>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net<BR></DIV></DIV></DIV><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br />
<table style="border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 55px; padding-top: 13px;"><a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=icon" target="_blank"><img src="https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;" /></a></td>
<td style="width: 470px; padding-top: 12px; color: #41424e; font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Virus-free. <a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=link" target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table><a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"> </a></div></BODY></HTML>