Older than I look

 My daughter recently walked the Camino de Santiago, journeying from Portugal up to the northwest corner of Spain where the St. James (Santiago) Cathedral dominates the city of Compostela. Upon return she gave a beautiful coffee coaster made of porcelain tiles. Each small tile is distinct, no two being the same. I love it.

Wondering whether the coaster was made in Portugal or Spain, I turned it over to read the small print on the back. I learned that the company is in Asturias, Spain, but that the coaster itself was made in—you guessed it!—China.

I struggle with the question many people here in the retirement center ask—where are you from? I don’t always know how to answer. I’ve lived in so many places. I was born in Iowa; grew up in Iowa, Arizona, and Southern California; went to college in Oregon; and spent a good number of my adult years in Bolivia and other Latin American countries. But really, I’m from Oregon where I now live.

Or am I?

Like the coaster, it’s hard to tell. I had to turn the coaster over and read the fine print.

Please don’t turn me over to find out where I’m from.

But inside me, somewhere—heart? brain? where?—there are deep words that read “from before the foundation of the world” God knew and chose me (Ephesians 1:4). I come from heaven. I come from the heart of God. I’m older than I look.

Truth be told, I still live there. The Old Testament prophet Moses tell us that the Lord has been our dwelling place throughout all generations (Psalm 90:1). In the New Testament we read that we are to abide in (live, dwell, sink deep into) Christ (John 15). If we’re following the footsteps of Jesus, that’s where we live, no matter where we make our bed.

And someday, in a new and living sense, I’ll return to my beginnings. I’ll go home, back to the heart of God, but in a deeper, more experiential way. Physically as well as spiritually.

Considering my beginnings, I’m “older than the hills,” as the saying goes. But considering my destiny, I’m just getting started.

I’m so much younger than I look.

Doing the stuff or just believing?

 Recycling is good and I’m recycling an old idea today. It’s the dilemma of works (doing the stuff) versus faith (just believing), especially as applied to the challenges of growing older. Actually, I’ve written on this before, but I still wrestle with it. I wrestle by writing.

Recently I read in Romans 4 Paul’s praise of the old patriarch Abraham who was blessed by God because of his faith, not for any works he did. Paul makes it clear that faith is superior to works. Even good works.

Since retirement, I squirm when someone asks me what I’ve been doing lately. I have to pause and try to remember.

Like many of us, I came from the world of work and I can look back and feel proud of my accomplishments: textbooks written; poems published; classes taught; kids fed, educated and finally launched. Not to mention all the education I soaked up (and paid for).

Not all of it was good works, of course. I had plenty of set-backs. I was a miserable failure at teaching in public high school. I lost a significant scholarship because on the final interview I couldn’t remember my name. (I’m not kidding. I was that nervous.) I could go on, but for the sake of my pride, I won’t.

At any rate, I worked hard. I did a lot of stuff and made a name for myself.

But now that life is on the shelf. When I visit my old school, church, or place of work, there are so many people I don’t know. And they don’t know my name and could care less about my accomplishments. I’m another person. It seems that the time of works is over.

So, what have I been doing lately? Not much really. I pray and write in the mornings, but that’s what I love, what I’ve always wanted to give my time to, so it probably doesn’t count. Sometime I attend an exercise class. In the afternoons I might visit a friend and we talk. I take walks and naps. I read a lot of books. Occasionally I watch a movie. (Occasionally I binge on a Netflicks series, but that’s a secret). I might work on a puzzle or draw flowers. Many evenings other people fix my meals and wash the dishes. Then we watch the evening news, pray for the world, and go to bed early. That’s what I’ve been doing lately. It all adds up to—not much.

Not only do I squirm at the question of how I’m spending my time, I sometimes struggle with guilt. The active, left-brain, accomplishing self feels guilty. But the softer, more intuitive self tells the busy self to just shut up. Sometimes she does.

I know this isn’t exactly what Paul means when he champions faith over works. But now that my time for works has diminished, I take comfort from his perspective. Do I have enough faith to justify that comfort? That’s a good question.

To complicate matters, the Apostle James turns the faith/works equation on its head when he tells us that “faith without works is dead.” Dead. That’s pretty drastic. I guess I can’t let retirement release me completely from the need to work for the kingdom. Maybe my praying and writing and talking with people are forms of work? I’m not so sure about the puzzles and the movies and novels, but, honestly, I don’t feel too guilty about any of it.

I know I’m getting older, but I’m not yet ready for dead, thank you very much, St. James. And I honestly don’t want to be busy accomplishing stuff anymore. So, I need to keep seeking a healthy balance of good works appropriate for my time of life and a faith that sustains it all.

And I’d like to be less flummoxed by the question, “What have you been doing lately.”

Maybe “not much” is a whole lot.

You Are Old, Father William

When my friend Harriet was in the last months of her life (at 104 years old!), I continued our practice of reading books aloud. The last one we read was Alice in Wonderland and, when Harriet had not fallen asleep, she laughed along with me.

We especially enjoyed the silly poems, one of which, “You Are Old, Father William,” I have copied below. Like all Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poems, there’s a lot of sense hiding in the background. This poem features the contest between young and old, the young being the son who is scolding his father for inappropriate behavior. The son is a bit of a know-it-all but the father doesn’t let it affect him.

You Are Old, Father William
By Lewis Carroll

 "You are old, father William," the young man said,
    "And your hair has become very white;
  And yet you incessantly stand on your head —
    Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

  "In my youth," father William replied to his son,
    "I feared it would injure the brain;
  But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
    Why, I do it again and again."

  "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
    And have grown most uncommonly fat;
  Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door —
    Pray, what is the reason of that?"

  "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
    "I kept all my limbs very supple
  By the use of this ointment — one shilling the box —
    Allow me to sell you a couple."

  "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
    For anything tougher than suet;
  Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak —
    Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

  "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
    And argued each case with my wife;
  And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
    Has lasted the rest of my life."

  "You are old," said the youth; one would hardly suppose
    That your eye was as steady as ever;
  Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose —
    What made you so awfully clever?"

  "I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
    Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
  Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
    Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

I like this poem because of the way it pokes fun of the social expectations of what is appropriate behavior and appearance for old people. Maybe this was truer in the Victorian era when Carroll wrote his books, but the pressures exist today too. I resist conforming to the stereotypical images of “old lady” or “old man” and I know many of you do too. While I don’t intend to try back-somersaults or balancing an eel on my nose, I hope my actions and appearance can at least reflect a young spirit.

Way to go, Father William!

Things I don't do well but can't give up

 It seems that much of growing older has to do with giving up. It begins with giving up our job, sometimes a life-long career, and that involves giving up part of our personal identity. Then we move on to giving up stuff (we call it downsizing), giving up relationships (more of our friends are dying), and giving up activities we used to be good at. We move on to giving up the car and, sometimes, giving up our teeth and other body parts. We fear someday giving up our dignity as people have to care for us as though we were infants.

Grim.

When my thoughts about all this become too grim for comfort, then it’s humor to the rescue. So I made a list of “things I don’t do well but can’t give up, at least not yet.” Here’s the list:

1.     --Cooking: Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever done this well. I have a history of bland casseroles, substituted ingredients that didn’t turn out, forgetting the cheese, stuff burnt on the bottom of the pan, and so on. Hal and our grown kids reassure me they enjoyed my meals, but they are all very nice people and wouldn’t say anything else. At any rate, I’m even less fond of cooking now than I ever was. But I’m not ready to give it up. We have a kitchenette in our apartment, so I cook. And when I’d can’t bear the thought, we go down to the community dining room where other nice people fix our meals.

2.     --My guitar: This is another activity I’m not sure I ever did well, but it gave me a lot of joy. I got my first guitar in high school when folk music was the rage. I loved Joan Baez and wanted to be like her, and so—the guitar. I’ve plunked and strummed for many years now, but never arrived at any proficiency. There are two reasons for this: 1) I don’t have the musical gene and 2) I hate to practice.  Right now the guitar sits propped up against the book case, along with her daughter, a ukelele (which I also used to play). I keep thinking I’ll begin playing again and get really good at it. And tomorrow would be a good time to start. The thought of getting rid of them makes me sad.

3.   

--Tent camping: Hal and I used to do this. But the last few times we’d begun to wonder. Those air mattresses seem to be getting thinner and thinner, our backs in the morning stiffer and stiffer. Getting up several times in the middle of the night to wander through the trees to the camp bathroom doesn’t seem as adventuresome any more. To be honest, the last time we hauled our camping equipment to some lovely state park was before the pandemic. But the stuff still occupies much of our storage container—tent, tarp, air mattresses, pump, sleeping bags, propane stove, pots and pans, lantern, and numerous other essential camping stuff. From time to time, we talk about getting rid of it, but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. Not yet.

4.     --Art supplies: These occupy space in our apartment and I also have a locker down in the community art room. I’ve never considered myself an artist, but after retirement I began to experiment and enjoyed it. I’ve even taken a few art classes here in the retirement community. So I dabble and sometimes I get it right. I’ve become good enough for personal greeting cards, including some really funny birthday cards for the grandkids. However, along with my missing music gene, I was not born with an art gene. When I say, “I’m not really an artist,” my friends tell me never to say that. But it’s true. Still, I’m keeping the art supplies for now and using them. It’s healthy. And fun.

5.     --House plants: Some people kid about murdering their house plants. But I won’t kid about it; I am that criminal. And yet I love the idea of filling my rooms with beautiful leaves and blooms—real ones. Plastic doesn’t appeal. So I’m going to keep trying. I’ll just stoically throw out the dead plants and buy more as needed. My plants look really good for at least a year.

6.     --Poetry: Like so many serious writers (even writers of humor), I periodically wrestle with doubts. Some days I look at my books and think, “Wow! I like these poems!” Other days I want to throw everything I’ve ever written in the garbage. Pathetic, right? I wonder if I’m losing my edge as I age. But then I think that if I write a poem a day, out of 365 poems a year, some are bound to be good. Really good. Simple statistics. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I’m in no way ready to give this up.

7.   

 --Prayer: I used to think I had a special calling as an intercessor—praying for family, friends, enemies, against all sorts of illnesses, and, of course, for world peace. I still wistfully hope I have this calling. But then why do I fall asleep every time I sit down to pray? Pacing and praying makes me dizzy. Is there a new technique I need to learn? (I hope not. I’ve always resisted praying by technique.) I still want to go out on a limb as I pray, asking God for impossible things, like world peace. I just also need to pray that the limb doesn’t break. No, I’m definitely not willing to give this up.

This list could go on and on, but that’s enough for now. Life goes on. I probably will give up the guitar and the camping equipment. But for the time being, I’m hanging on to the rest.

I’m not giving up.

A beautiful place, silence, and time

 Last week I got to do something I’ve always dreamed about doing; I went on a personal writer’s retreat. A beautiful place, silence, and lots of time. For six days.

Having a beautiful place available made it all possible. Called simply, “The Writer’s Cabin,” it’s a new addition to Camp Tilikum outside of Newberg, Oregon. The cabin sits among the trees on the edge of a meadow and overlooks the lake. This was the inspiration of Quaker writer Richard Foster whose initial grant got the project started. The pandemic slowed construction down (as it did everything else), and it’s been hard to get it going again, but it’s finally finished.

The past few years Hal and I would drive out to Tilikum every few months to see how the cabin was coming along. We could even go inside, but it seemed all we ever saw were boards and tools and dust. But we had faith, so much so that I sent in my application a year ago. (I was probably the first.)

But it really is finished, and last week I was its first “Writer in Residence.” I got a pendant with those words on it which I proudly wore whenever I went outside.

I brought a specific writing project with me, a book of poems based on the life of Jesus. I already had a collection of these from the four Gospels; they all needed crafting, honing, polishing, and, in some cases, drastic editing. And I set myself to write new poems on areas of Jesus life not yet covered. It’s an ambitious project. Time to work on it, and on nothing else, was just what I needed.

I learned some things about myself during the week. While not exactly new information, the week reinforced things I’ve been observing for some time now.

I learned that I can’t do now what I could as a younger person. I had envisioned myself sitting in quiet bliss, writing for hours at a time, taking advantage of the wonderful opportunity I’d been given. I used to be able to do that in the middle of non-retreat circumstances (minus the “bliss”). A college student working into the night to finish a term paper—I could do it. As a young adult, I wrote a series of Bible school textbooks while the kids were in school, and back then, it was on a typewriter.

Not anymore. Not only age, but other physical challenges make impossible that kind of concentration for long periods of time. I found I needed to take breaks after only an hour of work. Fortunately, the retreat center offers miles of trails around the lake and into the forest, as well as a deck to sit on and watch the water. But I had to talk myself out of the guilt of taking those breaks. Can you believe it? I guess I’m still in the process of coming to peace with my changing body and mental energies. The week at the cabin actually helped me in this process. (Hal had told me previously, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Nancy.” He knows me.)

I rediscovered that I need to move my body. This is something I “rediscover” every week. If I sit too long at the computer, I get up stiff and aching like an old person. Strange. Again, I had to remind myself of the need for rhythms of movement and rest. Even just standing up from time to time to stretch my neck helped tremendously. And of course those short walks in the forest rejuvenated me (literally “made me young again”).

I rediscovered that I need people. I had envisioned the joy of solitude. And it was joyful. But only up to a certain point. Those daily phone calls with Hal became a point of encouragement and grounding. I still crave solitude. But I also need meaningful interaction with people, maybe more so now than in other stages of life. It’s another case for finding the rhythms of solitude and companionship. I need both.

As ever, I discovered I need to fight the negative voices, even on a retreat. I can never retreat from myself. Everywhere I go—there I am. My negative inner voices tell me I don’t deserve this retreat, I’m not really a good writer, this project is too big for me, etc., etc., etc. I’ve discovered these voices are fairly typical; other writers and creative people hear their own versions. And I’ve learned when to rebuke them, how to be patient with myself, and even when I need to listen to any truth in them. I don’t fight with the voices all the time; in fact, more often than not, I’m free to just get on with whatever I’m working on. But I didn’t think it fair that they should come along on my special retreat.

In all, the time was refreshing and productive, and I intend to make use of this gift again. I heard God reaffirm my vocation as a writer. I gained some guidance for the path ahead with this current project. (I have a lot of work to do.)

I began my practice of writing from Scripture several years ago, mainly as a devotional exercise and a way to pray and write through the Word. When I sit down with the Bible in my lap, I begin by praying Psalm 119:18—“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your word.” During my retreat, I received the second part of that prayer. God answered me from Revelation 1:11, “Write what you see.”

One side note about the retreat I want to mention, concerning the silence of being by a lake, among the trees. It’s that God has a sense of humor. I noticed these strange sounds the first evening. Animal sounds, somewhat like a wild goose, or so I told myself. As the evening darkened, the sounds grew louder, coming from all sides of the lake. So for several days I was on the lookout for geese flying north for the warm months. But not a single goose did I see. And the sound wasn’t exactly gooselike. It was somewhere between a goose and a pig. Between a honk and a grunt.

And then it struck me. Bull frogs! That’s what it was! I wondered if it was mating season and they were singing love songs. Actually, it was hilarious. At its loudest, I was in the middle of this vast choral performance. Then it would stop and be absolutely silent (beautiful!) for a couple minutes. Soon, across the lake, one lone soloist threw out his voice. Silence again. But soon another voice from my side of the lake answered. And little by little others would join in, tentatively at first, but quickly growing to a full triumphant chorus of frog music. They kept it up all night long and into the next morning. I missed the absolute silence, but what could I do but laugh?

When I needed silence, I just walked up the hill and into the trees.

Personal retreats of all kinds, not just writer’s retreats, are so valuable.  I think we never outgrow (“out-age”) our need to come apart from our familiar routines and scenery to reflect, to pray, or to do something purely for fun.  A retreat provides time to reaffirm our identity as children of God, to remind ourselves of our deepest values, and to hear once again God naming our particular call to service.

At some point in the aging process, it becomes harder to physically retreat to some beautiful place in the mountains or by the ocean. When such time comes for me, I hope my kids occasionally take me on day-trips to the beach. More than that, I hope I will have found that interior place of retreat where I can rest in the presence of the Creator of all mountains and oceans. In the presence of the Creator of bull frogs.

Growing old is no laughing matter—or is it?

 While browsing in our retirement center’s library, I recently found a book called A Treasury of Senior Humor, For And About Us Older Folks. I checked it out, ready for a good laugh. But my first reaction as I skimmed through the book was irritation. It seems to reinforce the stereotype of old people as ailing idiots—perpetually complaining and saying stupid stuff. Pathetic. It uses terms like “old codger,” “old maid,” “old goat,” and “over the hill.” The complier and editor. James E. Meyers, refers to himself as an “old coot.” Is this how we want to be known, even in jest? I certainly don’t.

On the other hand, isn’t laughter, especially about oneself, healthy? If it helps not to take oneself too seriously, yes. Even so, most of these jokes offend my sense of ongoing life and purpose.

I actually read through the book, skimming parts, focusing on the shorter jokes. In spite of my irritation, I found myself laughing at some of them. In order to justify the time I spent with this book, I’ll share some of the least offensive jokes with you. I hope they don’t make you mad.

Here goes:

--There is a standing unstated rule in small Indiana towns that when two old people over seventy-five get married, the guests don’t throw rice; they throw vitamin tablets.

--One sure way of breaking a man of the habit of biting his nails is to hide his teeth.

--Then there was Edna Shaker who had lived all her life in the hills of Arkansas. She lived a good but primitive life without modern conveniences … until recently. Finally, she got her first refrigerator and she loved it, along with all the conveniences that electricity brought to her mountain home But she had one complaint about the refrigerator. “It ain’t that we’re out of ice,” she said. “George he cuts it every winter and we pack it in sawdust and it keeps fine, same as always. But with that new “frig’rator,”it takes me too much time to cut our ice into squares just the right size to fit all them leetle spaces in the ice trays.”

--I adore my bifocals,
My false teeth fit fine.
My hairpiece fits swell.
But I sure miss my mind.

--It’s been said that you know you are growing older when, in the morning, you stand and hear the usual snap, crackle, pop … and it isn’t breakfast cereal.

--Old Mrs. Peters took her first plane ride and found that the altitude caused her ears to plug up. She was most uncomfortable and asked the hostess for relief. The hostess gave her a stick of gum and asked her to let her know if that helped.
            At the end of the flight, the hostess asked Mrs. Peters if her ears were OK. “Yes. That seemed to help,” Mrs. Peters replied. “But could you advise me as to the best way of getting that gum out of my ears, now that we’re on the ground?”

--“Whenever I’m in the dumps, I go get a new dress,” a matron confided.
            “Oh yes. How interesting, responded her friend. “I was wondering where you got them.”

--A sad thing happened to Joe Smith, a retired farmer who had moved to Minneapolis. It seemed that he froze to death. The poor guy went to the drive-in to see “CLOSED FOR THE WINTER.”

--Wife: “When I was young, I could have married a real caveman.”
            --Husband: “When you were young, that’s all there were.”

--If you get tired of replying to the question, “To what do you attribute your old age?” You might answer just as this old man did: “To the fact that I was born a very long time ago.”

“The worse part of growing old,” said Grandpa Hugh Garvey, father of thirteen, “is that I have to listen to advice from my children.”

--Age is a matter of mind. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

--Grandfather Edwards was reading a magazine, looked up from it to tell his wife, “The derndest story in here, Mary, where it says this old guy my age with a wooden leg just married a gal with a cedar chest. Can you imagine what a time they’ll have with splinters!”

--Old age has been defined as that time in life when you know all the answers but nobody asks you the questions.

--“Grandma, how long have you and Grandfather been married?” asked the granddaughter.
            “Fifty years,” Grandma replied.
            “Isn’t that wonderful,” exclaimed the granddaughter. “And I’ll bet that in all that time, you never once thought about a divorce … right?
            “Right. Divorce, never … Murder, sometimes.”

--Be tolerant of those who disagree with you. After all they have a right to their stupid ridiculous opinions.

Are you laughing? Or scowling? At any rate, have a good day.

Celebrating life

 Saturday a week ago, I celebrated a joyful wedding as my grandson Aren married his Anna. Saturday, two days ago, I celebrated another major event—the memorial service of a dear friend. The two celebrations were similar in many ways, but also very different.

Actually, in the last few weeks, we’ve worked our way emotionally through the deaths of two good friends. Strangely, both their services were on Saturday at 10:00. So Hal attended Linda’s service and I went to the one for Deloris. Each of the two memorial services genuinely celebrated a life well lived.

But still, it wasn’t the same as a wedding. We’ll continue to enjoy our grandchildren for years, God willing, participating in their joys, celebrating the birth of their babies (again, God willing), supporting them in their trials (inevitable), and relishing all we see God doing in and through their lives. With Linda and Deloris, we said goodbye. I will miss Linda’s sense of humor and her constant reminders to pray for our grandchildren. I can hardly imagine being without Deloris’ encouragement, her telling us how blessed her life has been, even as she was suffering pain that increased to the day of her death. Linda was about two years younger than me; Deloris, ten years older. Their life celebrations were joyful and sorrowful at the same time.

I find the difference between the terms memorial service and funeral interesting. Google tells me that the basic difference is the presence of the body in a funeral. In the memorial service, the physicality expresses itself in the photos of the person who has died.

When I was growing up, my parents didn’t take us kids to funerals. I think now that they probably should have. Seeing the body might have been traumatic, but so is death and children need to learn to accept it.

Or maybe not. Do we ever come to accept death? I’m not sure I do. Yes, I know it’s inevitable. It’s part of life, as some experts tell us. And that’s probably true. But the shock and the sense of void tell me it’s not entirely acceptable. St. Paul calls death the last enemy that will be defeated when the kingdom of God comes in its fulness.

The adjective, funereal, is defined as glum, morbid, sorrowful, and other such words. In literature the word is used for more than funerals. Uriah Heap had a funereal face. Dark and stormy nights are sometimes referred to as funereal.

Even so, funerals can be meaningful times, punctuated with joy if the deceased was a Christian. In Latin America, where I lived for many years, people usually commemorate their dead with funerals, preceded by a wake with the body present. Whole families, including children, gather to express their grief, sometimes loudly. It makes death real and probably helps the mourners move forward.

And, of course, faith in that good place the dead in Christ go to comforts. The stronger our belief, the greater the comfort. But comfort sometimes comes gradually and grief can take a long time.

In any event, I’m glad for the preponderance of memorial services these days.

In both memorial services Hal and I attended on Saturday, the grown children of the deceased gave testimonials about their mother. Both were beautiful tributes. In Deloris’ service, her youngest son ended his tribute by quoting from the ending of CS Lewis’ The Last Battle, the final book in his Chronicles of Narnia. Its words bring me great joy and anticipation:

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. 

Amen.

 

Life marches on, with celebration!

 On Saturday, June 7, we celebrated the wedding of our grandson Aren to his beloved Anna. The bride was beautiful, the groom could not stop smiling, the worship was rich, and the joy in the whole gathering was palpable. Too many superlatives? Not really. As the grandma, I am totally objective. There’s never been a wedding like this one!

The whole event began on Friday with the rehearsal at the venue (an old picturesque barn 45 minutes outside of Newberg). The rehearsal was followed by a lunch for the wedding party back in Newberg on the campus of George Fox University. It was large as the wedding party included 10 bridesmaids and 10 groomsmen. Aren and Anna have a lot of close friends! It was an open-mic time and many people shared about their experiences with the bride and groom and gave advice, some wise, some funny. Then we all gathered around Aren and Anna to pray.

On Saturday we rode with our son and daughter-in-law (Aren’s parents) to the wedding, arriving at 2:30 to help with last minute stuff. The wedding was at 3:30, outdoors in the heat (we were all given fans). The very meaningful ceremony was followed by a time of visiting and fellowship in the barn with platters of meats, cheeses, crackers, nuts and fruit. The word abundance comes to mind. The dinner began at 6:00, followed by more speeches and prayers. And finally, let the dancing begin! The music was lively; they even danced to “Splish, Splash, I Was Takin’ a Bath” (from my high school years).

Anna’s extended family and friends had come in from Chicago and Wisconsin, plus there were guests from Ruanda, Moracco, France, Bulgaria, and Mexico. Like I mentioned, Aren and Anna have lots of friends.

Hal and I left early (after 7 hours of celebration!) and so missed the send-off. But we left with joyful hearts. We know God’s blessing is on this couple who plan to live and serve in North Africa.

I felt honored as Aren and Anna had asked me to write and read the wedding blessing. “Make it as long as you want, Grandma!” Aren had told me. I did, however, use some restraint. I got to read the blessing at the beginning of the ceremony. I’m going to end this blog with the blessing: 

Marriage Blessing
Aren Thomas and Anna Town
June 7, 2025

Aren and Anna,

We, your family and friends who love you, gather with you today to witness your vows, affirm the path you’ve chosen, and get really really happy as we see your joy in each other.

Growing up in two different continents, you met on a third continent. Your friendship has been global from the beginning, and it’s about to become more so. Your two different streams are becoming one new river of faith that will go out into the world.

You bring together certain differences. In some ways it seems like hyper-activity marrying serenity. You’re creating a unique blend of adventure and common sense, of idealism and practicality. That blending is your strength.

Today we bless you with our prayers for the following:

n -- A growing commitment to open communication with each other; a wise use of words to explore, reveal, challenge, solve problems, make laugh, heal, and bless.

n  --Beauty in the places you go—places with mountains, rivers, deserts, wild flowers, and beasts you’ve never seen before. And beauty in the people you’ll meet in those places—people who will become friends.

n -- A combination of exciting adventures and the deep peace of being under God’s protection—both at the same time.

n  --Creativity by the bucketful—new paintings, recipes, pottery mugs and critters; new ideas and new ways of handling old tasks.

n  --Humor in the people you meet, in the strange things people say without meaning to, in your own mistakes, in each other, and in all the stuff life brings your way (even the hard stuff).

n -- Great food—the discovery of new dishes around the world, and in your own home—cooking it and serving it to others; a ministry of hospitality.

n  --Children—your own, God willing, and those you meet wherever you go. Kids to be silly with, tell stories to, listen to, build Lego fortresses and dragons in the sand with, to love and care for.

n  --Businesses built, restaurants opened, workers trained, people transformed because you loved and accompanied them.

n  --With all the moving and the possibility of living in different places, a sense of permanence and stability that comes from your relationship with each other and with God.

n  --Growth in grace and in knowing Jesus.

Two streams converging into a river in God’s kingdom. May you always hear the voice of the One who walks by your side as he says, “I will be with you always, even to the ends of the earth.”

We bless you on this, your wedding day.

                            With Aren's sisters

                            Parents of the groom

                                Happy couple

                                Happy grandparents

What Harold Fry taught me about growing older

 It’s interesting to me how many contemporary novels and movies feature old people as protagonists. Within the last year I’ve read Noah’s Compass (Anne Tyler), How to Age Disgracefully (Grace Pooley), and Miss Benson’s Beetle (Rachel Joyce), among others. Even more movies, including romances, focus on the elderly. Almost always, the lead characters are portrayed as quirky but people of value and wisdom—however disguised (think of A Man Called Ove/Otto, Fredick Backman).

I’ve just been spending time with Harold Fry and I think his adventures are rubbing off on me. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2012), another novel by Rachel Joyce, features an older man who takes off on an adventure that is entirely out of keeping with his personality and previous experience. Harold is newly retired from a job that had grown so unsatisfactory that he left with no one even noticing. Now at home with his nagging wife, he hardly knows what to do with himself. Sound familiar? At one point in the story, he looks back over his life:

He had made a mess of being a husband, father, and friend. He had even made a mess of being a son. It wasn’t simply that he had betrayed Queenie, and that his parents did not want him. It wasn’t simply that he had made a mess of everything with his wife and son. It was rather that he had passed through his life and left no impression. He meant nothing.

Early in the story Harold receives a letter from an old friend he hasn’t heard from in years. Queenie writes to tell him that she is dying of cancer and just wants to say goodbye. That’s all. It’s a short letter, really just a note. It touches Harold and he tries to write a reply saying he’s sorry, but he struggles with the writing. He walks down to the mailbox to post the few sentences he finally came up with, but he can’t drop it in the box. So he walks to a mailbox down the street. And on the to next, etc., etc. Harold Fry never turns around to go back home. Somewhere along the way he gets the strong impression that he needs to walk to Queenie’s nursing home and give her the message in person. He’s convinced that as long as he keeps walking, Queenie won’t die. Harold lives on the southern coast of England; Queenie’s hospice home is some 700 miles away in the north of the country.

Harold would have been the first to admit that there were elements to his plan that were not finely tuned. He had no walking boots or compass, let alone a map or change of clothes. The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself. He hadn’t known he was going to walk until he started.

The book is the story of his pilgrimage, the challenges he faces, the people he meets along the way, and what happens at the end. Without going into the details of the plot (read the book for yourself), I want to reflect on what I learned from this story, things Harold told me about older people without intending to, which is just like him.

--An ordinary person, even an older one, can take on an extraordinary task, even without the assurance of success. That speaks to my condition, as the Quakers say. I’ve taken on a project of writing poetry through every book of the Bible, a task that will probably take the rest of my life. It seems huge.

--It’s hard and success is not assured. Harold’s story ends strangely (but I’m not telling how). Mine may, too. Not all my poems will be good, in fact maybe most of them won’t. No matter. It’s definitely little by little, advancing everyday. If Harold kept on, so can I.

--Our bodies get in the way. Of course. Harold isn’t prepared for the blisters, the muscle aches, and the fatigue as he starts out. It gets better as he progresses, but he stays old to the very end. Sometimes fatigue and various aches and pains make me less than productive and I’m tempted to give up and just be retired—read novels, take naps, etc., etc. The challenges are real.

--Remembering is one of the tasks of old age. Somehow the walking helps Harold bring up the difficult things of the past and slowly begin to understand and face them. In a way, he’s coming to know himself. An important task for all of us.

--Harold accumulates some stuff along the way, stuff he considers necessary for survival. But at one point he realizes he’s carrying too much. So he gets rid of most of it and decides to let the needs of each day be met however that may be. He feels free again and picks up his pace. Yes to that. An ongoing process, but worth the trouble.

--This whole adventure is counter to the introverted mousey person he had been all his life. Yet the people he meets along the way begin to change him. He slowly comes out of isolation and finds community. It surprises and changes him. I need to remember that, especially as I enter different levels of care in the future. I see the temptation to isolation as fairly common. Being in life-giving community sometimes requires an effort.

--As Harold interacts with a variety of people, mainly by listening to their stories, he discovers that there are no boring ordinary people. What people carry inside—their past, their pain, their secret joys—makes each one a mysterious package to be opened. “Harold thought of the people he had already met and passed. Their stories had surprised and moved him, and none had left him untouched. Already the world had more people in it for whom he cared.” Remember that, Nancy. Here in this retirement community, there are no ordinary people; listen to the stories.

Here is one of my favorite passages:

… Harold walked with these strangers and listened. He judged no one, although as the days wore on, he couldn’t remember if the tax inspector wore no shoes or had a parrot on his shoulder. It no longer mattered. He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.

He walked so surely it was as if all his life he had been waiting to get up from his chair.

--Harold finds that learning and discovering have no age limits. Once he stops looking down and feeling the pain of walking, he begins to look around. He discovers the beauties of the English countryside. “Once more, it surprised him how much was at his feet, if only he had known to look.” No matter our age, the world still invites us to explore and learn.

--Gradually, and without realizing it, Harold becomes new, while still being true to the essential person he is. Transformation happens. And not only of himself, but of his relationships. Back home, Maurine, Harold’s wife, had been going through her own time of reflection and change (but I won’t elaborate on how that turns out). We’re never too old to experience change and renewal.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry does not aim to teach lessons or help us with self-improvement as we grow older. It tells a story, and does it well. But the characters are genuine, and so we implicitly learn as we enter into the lives of these ordinary unique people.

Sometimes the adventures we go on are through the pages of a good book.

    Now I think I’ll go out and take a walk.

A strange phenomenon

 Recently I tuned in to a TV documentary. It was a series that explored strange phenomena, anything from UFOs to Brazilian insects or ancient civilizations. This particular week’s topic was the phenomenon of old ladies.

Who are they? Where did they come from? How long have they existed? What threat do they pose to contemporary life?

Images flashed across the TV screen, scenes of the clichéd aproned mid-western grandmother, apple pie in hand; the fashionable silver-haired Broadway babe; and various crones from around the world, care-worn and grim-faced. Old ladies all.

The show’s moderator was an earnest yet engaging professorial type in a casual sweater and tie, fairly old himself. He introduced the expert from Harvard University. Dr. Hershberger, dean of the department of gerontology, is currently leading a team of researchers doing an in-depth investigation of the relationship between the percentage of old ladies in a given society and the amount of street violence in that same context. The expert was poised on the cusp of a serious comment …

when I woke up.

I chuckled and wondered what that was all about.

It reminds me of a quote by Dorothy Sayers: “Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”

I guess we can be pretty scary creatures.

I wonder what, if anything, my subconscious was trying to tell me with that dream. I don’t personally feel like I’m a scary person and I can’t imagine me starting a street riot. I barely have the energy to participate in a protest march for a cause I believe in.

I do sometimes scare myself, like when I’m walking downtown and catch my reflection in a store window. So old! That white hair! That can’t be me! But it is.

I worry myself more than frighten myself. If I get so tired today, what will I be like in ten years? What happens when our pension runs out? When will I lose my balance and fall? (That almost seems inevitable.) What if my grandkids get bored and don’t come to see me anymore? And on and on.

Old age is definitely a phenomenon, although not likely one to be featured on a program of strange and exotic creatures. We're all too common. We’re everywhere!

Maybe the heart of this dream is the realization that I sometimes seem strange and exotic to myself. Weird might be a better word. I never planned on being old. As a young person, I knew that would never happen to me. I knew I would die someday, but the road to death was blurry. Unthinkable. That’s why a glance at my reflection now disorients me.

I think I need to reorient my perspective and laugh. I may frighten myself at times and worry myself, but I can also make myself laugh. After all, that was a pretty preposterous dream.

I will remind myself that I’m am a beloved daughter of my heavenly Father. I am also beloved by the people I love and that some of them even think I’m beautiful. (Imagine that!) I will remind myself that I can still make a contribution to the welfare and happiness of others. I can write poems, pray for my grandchildren, teach a class (occasionally), encourage others, edit a journal of stories, vote in the elections, and play Mexican Train.

Maybe we are sort of strange (depending on who’s looking at us). Maybe some academics do study us—our habits, relationships, medications, sleep patterns, emotions, and so on. Maybe some people see us as a phenomenon of nature rather than as regular persons. And maybe we are scary to some people.

Actually, the scary part sounds like fun!