Tag Archives: Aging

“Getting Old is Not For Wimps”

“Getting old is not for wimps,” said a number of older, non-wimpy members I visited last week.

For a pastor, it is a great gift to constantly be in contact with people in every generation. In a single day, I might teach Holy Communion to an exuberant 3-year-old, ask an aloof teenager at Confirmation about his day, mourn with a recent empty-nester, and learn that getting old is not for wimps.

Maybe this nugget of wisdom stands out to me because I am, indeed, getting older. In fact, my upcoming birthday is the year of the inaugural colonoscopy. Anytime this makes me nervous, I consider all that the non-wimpy older members endure: constant poking and prodding and a schedule mostly shaped by appointments with medical providers. I also heard from some of these non-wimps gratitude for easy access to emergency care. Compared to previous centuries, perhaps this is not such a bad one in which to age.

Still, the work of aging is not for wimps. Overall, I am not such a fan of pain. Not the chronic nor acute kind. I prefer no pain, no aches, no pokes and no prods. I like bone joints to move where and when I’d like, which is also how I prefer to drive: without restrictions or making my children worry. I enjoy the freedom of walking down the stairs without anyone wondering how they will attempt to catch me if I fall.

Getting old is not for wimps, but for people who learn how to mourn. By the time someone reaches “old age”, they have mourned the loss of cooperative joints, original hair color, and the ability to walk through a room without anyone noticing their limp. There is mourning for lost identities (I was a banker, a runner, a respectable non-limper). There is mourning, of course, for the beloved ones who have peeled off along the way, en route to a better place.

No, getting old is not for wimps. This refrain spoken among the people I visited last week was followed by a laugh, a lighthearted framing of our lives. Living requires aging, with all its perks and problems, all its pokes and prods. Living leads to mourning until finally mourning leads to dancing. Even our bone joints are made new on the other side. And all driving privileges are renewed.

Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

Have I Learned Anything This Year?

In the last week in December, we tend to set our eyes on the year ahead. What can I get better at? How can I improve at being human? What torturous, calorie-depriving task shall I undertake in January?

I have answers to all 3. I’d like to get better at setting aside time to write on my day off. I’d like to improve at being focused in the office when I’m there and at home when I’m there. And I’d like I feel compelled to take a break from sugar in January.

These are phenomenal plans and planning is my happy place. Making your own individual goals does actually tend to make you a better human. Focusing on your own goals keeps you from making goals for other people, such as your spouse or child. They can make their own goals and would prefer it that way.

Could you also take a moment this week to set your eyes on the year now behind you. Not only will we celebrate the inbreaking of a new year this weekend, we can celebrate the send-off of 2022. The end of something deserves as much attention as the beginning of a new thing. This is a Christian practice. We are both ending and beginning people, believing there can be no beginning without a solid ending.

A new job follows the end of a previous job. A new relationship follows the end of another relationship. A new plan follows the end of an old plan. Resurrection follows a death. And a new year follows the end of an old year. And ending, therefore, is a sign of hope. It is only in the ending that God stirs up a new beginning.

Take a moment today to look back and have a talk with God.

  • What did you learn in 2022?
  • What surprised you?
  • What happened to your faith?
  • What was one of the most difficult experiences?
  • When did God renew your strength?
  • What do you need to let go? (A hurt, a dream, a stack of clothing you never wore)
  • When did joy bubble up inside you?
  • What did you learn you can do that you did not know you could do?
  • How did the year behind you prepare you for the year ahead?

Before you ring in a new year, wring out the old year. Say goodbye before you say hello. Embrace the ending and then embrace the new beginning.

Photo Credit: zero take on Unsplash

The Peachy Life

(Photo credit: Nati Melnychuk on Unsplash)

Only a slice remains of the sweet season when you enter the produce section of the grocery store and meet a pile of peaches! Buried in yogurt and granola or piled up beside my morning eggs, I do love myself a peach. It takes a minute and no more to add such abundance to my life, long enough to slice and then handwash the knife.

There are times when even the quick work of preparing a peach seems like too much. To slice up a peach would require too much time, so I don’t. And what a bummer, with peach season in North Dakota so short it’s the pits. (Your eyeroll is justified.)

If I tell myself there is not enough time to slice a peach, I am far too busy. If I tell myself there is not enough time to connect with a friend, take a short walk, read a few pages of a book, breathe a few deep breaths, look into the eyes of the family member speaking to me, or visit with my husband, I have let my life become too rushed.

On this side of 40, I might grow more aware of the needless things I do. Things, I hate to admit, no one would notice if I did not do them. When these needless things do not get done because I am “busy” slicing a peach, consuming the flavor of abundant life, all is peachy with my soul.

Change (John 4:46-54)

(Photo by Martin Lostak on Unsplash)

(John 4:46-54 NRSV) 46Then [Jesus] came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” 50Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” 53The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

http://www.bibleoremus.org

Lately, I’ve taken to writing in the company of a lava lamp, a quirky re-gift that I scored a few years back in a white elephant gift exchange. The liquid is blue and the “lava” is a bright green, calling to mind the gurgling water in The Simpsons nearby radioactive lake with singular-eyed fish.

I love this lamp. In college, a similar lamp gently illuminated my dorm room, its mysterious liquid gracefully changing form again and again. One moment, four tiny balls of lava were bouncing around, the next, it had stretched into a piece of taffy, and then it became one enormous, satisfied glob.

Almost like a crystal ball, the lamp has given me assurance that change is an essential process to lead to the next thing. Change occurs only so that the another thing may mysteriously occur, so the lava can transform into something new.

This is true as Marcus and I talk through high school registration options for next year with our boys, reviewing forms labeled “sophomore” and “junior”. These new class labels preview changes that will occur so that our boys’ lives may continue to change, one year at a time. The changes are not as graceful as the mysterious liquid in my beloved lamp, (childhood is hard on everyone, if you recall) and yet they are mysterious changes that will transform our boys into something new.

Change is also Jesus’ thing. A few weeks ago, Jesus changed water into wine. Then, Jesus changed Nicodemus’ mind. Last week, he changed a woman from unacceptable to accepted. These changes are just as cool as the transforming lava substance in my lamp, and equally mysterious!

The story above is told when Jesus changed a sick and dying child into a healed and living child, which was sure nice of him. John’s gospel presents a mere three healing stories, far fewer than the other three gospels. In the other gospels, it is common to hear of Jesus changing sickness into health. John’s book is more frugal with these types of changes, and I find this to be refreshing. Sickness does not always change into health. Sickness can change into remission, can change into hospice, as is true this week for my dear friend, Terry. Change is a mysterious process, a sifting around of the lava so that a new transformation may occur.

For those raising kids, change is the air you breathe. Kids grow. They like you one day and dislike the next! They do the right thing and do the wrong thing and up and down and back and forth the changes go. I’m pinpointing the good news in this story not to the healing, but to the changing. Changing, as the lava lamp proclaims, is a steady promise. All things change and not always in the way we desire. But still they change.

For the father of the man in John’s gospel, his sorrow was changed into relief. For you and for me, all of our sorrows are finally changed into relief. Into hope. Into rejoicing. Jesus changes death into life, which is the change that holds us steady when the miracle we waited for does not come. When life unfolds unfairly and without much common sense.

What changes are you presented with in this season of your life? Are you walking your kids through big changes in their lives? Could you hold those changes alongside Jesus’ promise that change can look like four tiny balls changing into a piece of taffy changing into an enormous, satisfied glob because, in the end, change is Jesus’ mysterious, steady, and transforming good news.