Name:Meeting Jesus' family, Simeon played a special role. He prophesied about their future, he praised God for their present, and he blessed them so they would someday remember this moment and rejoice that God had been with them from the start.
It's good for parents to help mold an appropriate vision for their children's future. How doubly powerful this would be if it also came from the previous generation -- grandparents and elder church members who'd play more than Santa Claus and take on the prophetic role of a Simeon, saying, "This is the kind of person I see God has fashioned you to be."
Similarly, in a society where too many of us suffer from a bewildering sense of aimlessness, what a vibrant task it could be for our elders to reassure us with their praises to God for our lives, the way Simeon praised God for the life of Jesus. These praises could be a beautiful form of offering--just one way that mature people could shepherd others who are still early in their journeys. I like the way Bill McConnell expresses such offerings in his poem "Community Life."
Old trees, hospitable as small towns
no longer afraid that high water, fire
or some endemic blight
will shrivel early growth
but now satisfied
that more summers and winters
will not dislodge them,
bear offerings--
landmarks, reference points, sanctuary--
to hearten pilgrims
whose songs still tremble, newborn.
hat tip: Lyric. Thank you.
Labels: Aging, Books, Grandparenting, Poems
The kids can SMELL the end of our school year. I know they can. Worse than that, they know *I* can. It's evident in the slow slide of efficiency, time management, and enthusiasm. For the next few weeks, only sheer will will keep us going...but go we will, finishing up the last of our books with...with...yes, with determination!
I have a thousand projects I'd like to do this summer. In truth, five of them will probably get done. I can comfort myself with the memory of how successful we were with major projects last summer, thanks to my son-in-law and the many hands that pitched in along the way. But I'm still holding out hope that in another month I'm going to be walking (and bending, and climbing?) pain-free, allowing me to take on some of the things that only the mom can do...
Tuesday is one more in a string of dates that many of us have been sure would be the tipping point in the race for the Democratic nomination. I've learned enough not to say, "this will be it..." because I've found that there are women more stubborn than I am! Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what happens and where the race goes from Pennsylvania. And as the cannibalization of the Dems continues, John McCain quietly builds support among the very folks that said, "Never."
This week I received the okay to begin putting weight on my leg (read: the xray shows this graft isn't broken!) and so the march to normal continues. I want to ditch this walker! I will start physical therapy soon to restore the muscles that have now been cut through three times. I'm never crazy about physical therapy but I've seen remarkable results as a result of diligent attention to it, so I will comply.
A nice field technician came to my house this week and replaced the motherboard on my laptop. It was rather disconcerting to see the extension of my personal and business brain laid out in pieces on my desk, rather like seeing the same thing happen to my 60-year old piano last summer when it was being reconditioned. But all is well, and though I would still call this model of Dell laptops a lemon (this is my second one), at least some of the problems have been taken care of and I'm back in business with no apparent loss of anything valuable. The rest, as they say, remains to be seen.My three-year-old grandson Sam was shown a wedding picture of The Papa and me and was asked, "Sam, do you know who this is?" After answering several times that he didn't know those people, he was told that, yes, he DID know those people, that they are his Granny and Papa when they were younger. He squinted, got his face right up to the picture, and then exclaimed, "Oh! They used to have regular faces!"
May you, too, have such happy reality checks as you get older :-)
Have a lovely Sunday and a productive spring week!
Labels: Aging, Grandkids, Health, Political Observation, Sundays, Technology
...to bring you one of the funniest pieces I've read in a long time, though it hits dangerously close to home.
And yes, I'm aware that a disproportionate number of my readers are Gen X'ers and I'm okay with that. But sometimes, you know, you gotta "dance with them what brung ya."
And so, if you are over, say, 40 years old--or hope to make it there someday--you must read this piece by David Brooks in the New York Times. Read it aloud to someone you love...even if he won't remember by tomorrow.
The Great Forgetting
We see a lot of articles and statistics about how the number of children a woman bears and nurses affects her health and lifespan, but it's rare to see anything published about how children factor into a man's lifespan. Enter this new study, and a fascinating one it is.
MONDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A young, trim farmer with four or more children: According to a new study, that's the ideal profile for American men hoping to reach 100 years of age.
One of the most interesting things about the study is how the data were collected...I'll let you go see for yourself.
But I'm left with one question: Does tomato gardening count?
hat tip: Dina
At 59, it's that old college trySul Ross player goes 37 years between games
ALPINE, Texas - Mike Flynt is a very senior linebacker - a real upperclassman.
Thirty seven years ago, back when Richard Nixon was president, Flynt was a junior footballer at tiny Sul Ross State University with a nose for fighting and a hard head.
After one scuffle too many, he got booted from the team he loved, a fall from grace that became one of his life's great regrets.
So when Flynt, 59, was reminiscing over some beers at a class reunion a few months ago, and a pal said that maybe he could get his last season of playing eligibility back, it wasn't a punch line to the AARP member - it was an eureka moment.
On Saturday night, Flynt capped a personal fairy-tale of second chances and redemption when he returned to the gridiron as his aging ex-teammates, his grown children and his grandson cheered him on.
Flynt's first round hadn't ended so well:
Way back in the day, Flynt was a pretty good player - but not such a good person. He was on the first state championship team at Odessa Permian, the Texas high school immortalized in the book "Friday Night Lights." After bouncing around junior college, he wound up at Sul Ross State, which at the time competed in the tougher NAIA division (it is now a division III school).
Flynt was an emotional leader on the 1969 Sul Ross team that scored the only win that season against Texas A&I, which won two consecutive national championships. But a brawl in the dorms prior to the start of the 1971 season - which by Flynt's admission came after more than a dozen other scraps - ended his playing career.
But there is redemption...
Flynt stayed in sports, working as a strength coach at Texas A&M, Oregon and Nebraska. He embraced the Christian life, thanks to his wife Eileen - with whom he's raised three children in their more than 35 years of marriage. But he never got over the feeling that he'd let his own football dreams slip away.
During this year's class reunion, he said he confided in his former teammates, "Do you know how many times I cried over that? The funny thing is, I still feel like I can play." One told him he should try. Soon, Flynt was begging for a final shot at football glory.
Former teammate Wilson warned him that he might get his rear end kicked. His wife thought he was kidding. When they figured out he was sincere, they got behind him.
"I was frustrated with him one day and said, I feel like I'm married to Peter Pan!" Eileen Flynt said. "But I realized how much it meant to him. And I knew that if something meant that much to me, he'd support me all the way."
Flynt is working toward a master's degree and enrolled in classes in management and the history of sports.
Isn't that great? Now, what can I go back and redo...?
Full story here.
(Oh, and The Papa says he might try that too, but he wants to say he could take more grandchildren to the games.)
Yes, the summer heat is back. I don't like it. It saps my energy. But I am so very grateful for the real winter, rainy cool spring, and temperate summer we've had so far. It makes it a lot easier to bear knowing that fall isn't far away. It's the years when the heat starts in March that I feel as though I'm going to explode by June.
Tomorrow morning Dirk will start the last stage of this summer's projects: painting and installing baseboards, crown molding, and decorative shelving in our bedroom. As soon as that's done (and I'm about ready to have it all done!) I'll be ready to get a few more pictures up. But did I mention that I love it?
The week was a busy one, with another busy one to come. I'm glad I didn't push myself to start school in early August this year as I do some years. With the big family vacation, the massive redecorating, and getting in a groove with some business projects, I needed to leave myself a little breathing room. It's taken me a lot of years to know myself...I'd have saved myself a lot of grief earlier in my life if I'd taken care to pace myself better. But then, perhaps your fifties are an appropriate time to be taking advantage of the lessons learned in previous decades. Whatever, I'll take them...
What I DON'T want to have to take is the inch of gray roots peeking out under my highlights. That part of aging I could do without! Time to get the hairdresser on the line.
I've missed reading lately...other important things have crowded it out temporarily. Once my school planning is complete I hope to get back to a few books, my iPod books, and my Netflix list. I've been seeing some great reads reviewed on other blogs and I have got to move fast!
I'm also getting the "hankerin' " (sorry, a word specific to southerners over 40 years old) to do some sewing, cross-stitching, crocheting, quilting, something with my hands again this fall. Okay, well,scratch the cross-stitching. I already gave the majority of my eyesight to 22 count Hardanger and I probably can't afford any more losses on that score. But looking through my scrap drawers this week had my mouth watering and wondering where I could fit that in.
Speaking of fitting stuff in, I'm still looking for a day this week to do our chicken freezer meals. Need to get that done before I forget how good Monday felt!
And because I'm rather shallow today I leave you with this: is it a sad world when the courts have to decide who's the better parent, Britney Spears or Kevin Federline? Sheesh...
Happy Sunday night!
Labels: Aging, Books, Decorating, Homemaking, News, Weather
Great-great-granny earns masters degree at 94
Cops: Man, 93, Shoots Violent Robber
EL DORADO, Ark. (AP) - An elderly man beaten unconscious by an assailant wielding a soda can awoke and shot the man during an attempted robbery, police said.Willie Lee Hill, 93, told police he saw the robber while in his bedroom Wednesday night. Hill confronted the man and was struck at least 50 times, police said. He was knocked unconscious.
Covered in blood, Hill regained consciousness a short time later and pulled a .38-caliber handgun on his attacker. The suspect, Douglas B. Williams Jr., saw the gun and charged the man, who fired a bullet that struck Williams in the throat, police said.
Find out how the unlucky robber reacted here.
I once heard a woman say, "You know, older chickens make the best soup!" Because that sounded rather sacrificial to me, I amended it to, "Older chickens lay the best eggs." "Well," a farmer drawled in response to my asking if this was a true statement, "I don't know. Could be. But I do know that older chickens don't cackle as much."
Hum...I think we do cackle less and less as we mature. In the quiet, perhaps we are better able to hear the sounds of our potential waiting to be hatched. Life requires that we create, and as we pass the age of possible baby-making, we march into an era where myriad possibilities become vibrantly alive within us. Ideally, this is a time when we have not only the yearning but also the freedom to peck open the shells surrounding our personal creative power and realize our dreams and schemes...
I used to grin at middle-aged (or older) women who took up oil painting or ballroom dancing. While I can't do the latter and will probably never be interested in the former, I am understanding the impulses more and more. I want to go out in "create" mode, whether that's tomorrow or in forty years...
Labels: Aging