THOUGHTS ON GETTING BY WHILE GETTING OLD [Sa 10-22-22]

 

Some By Me and Some by Others

Election day is coming up. I have received emails from several different organizations urging me to vote. One such organization claims its purpose is “…to get young people to vote, because we can make a difference.” Well, a bit late in my case, but I appreciate the reminder.

“Comfort is the enemy of progress.” So… progress is overrated.

I see the world with the same clear vision with which I have always viewed it, but the world looks back at me with the misty, wrinkled eyes of irrelevance.

“Life is like a helicopter. I don’t know how to operate a helicopter, either.”

“Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.” Dorothy Parker

I thought getting old would take longer

“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth standing in line for.” Will Rogers

I am often nostalgic for times that never were.

“Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.” Madeline L’Engle, quoting an anonymous friend. P. 54, Walking on Water

“…you had but one job…” as the joke goes. At my age, I have but one job, to get ready to die, by discarding all the unnecessary stuff--from my spirit, from my body, from my relationships, from my possessions.

            Actually, that’s the one job at any age. I sort of wish I had understood that better, earlier.

“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.”

“Unexplained pain may sometimes direct our attention to something unacknowledged, something we are afraid to know or feel.” Rachel Remen

The surest way to be irrelevant tomorrow is to be too relevant today.

“Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.” D.T. Niles

“When old men become irrelevant, young men become irresponsible.”

The Wesley Foundation building in Terre Haute, IN is now the United Campus Ministries building, Wesley Foundation being only one of the cooperating denominational ministries. It was built during the time I was campus minister there. It was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Really? I do have a sweat shirt that says I am on the Register of Historic Persons, but that’s just because my daughters thought it would be a funny birthday gift. Am I really old enough that a building built when I was already out of seminary is now “historic?”

At least it’s still standing. Not so with the hospital where I was born, my grade school and high school, every commercial building in my home town, my university dorm, our first parsonage, and seven of the church buildings where I preached.

“Don’t count the days; make the days count.”

“To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion.” Albert Camus

John Robert McFarland