Grandma goes camping

 Hal and I went on our last tent-camping trip just before the pandemic hit. We were five-years younger than we are now and beginning to feel the physical challenges of “roughing it.” In fact, we came home one day earlier than we had intended. That was then.

The camping trip I went on last week was not anywhere near wilderness camping. I attended a women’s retreat at a Christian campground. Only mildly primitive. But, even so….

The grounds were rustic, something a group of middle-school kids would relish. I’m years removed from middle-school, and “relish” is not a word I would use about last week. I’m speaking of the physical realities, not the spiritual experience. I had to take my old sleeping bag out of storage. It had been a while and I had not remembered how restrictive sleeping bags are. I’m a restless sleeper these nights, so as I turned over, parts of the bag turned with me and other parts stayed put. I ended up in a twisted tunnel of bedding and had to pull and tug a bit to get comfortable. This happened multiple times throughout the night.

The simple wooden bunkbeds were arranged in rows in cabins. Five of us slept in my cabin, which meant none of us had to occupy a top bunk. (In that case, I would have gone right home.) It also meant little privacy, which one can live with for a limited time. But the bathroom was housed in a separate building which presented a problem. As you all know, older bladders shrink, along with other internal organs, which can mean multiple trips to the bathroom. But one can also adapt to that situation if it’s for a limited time. I just kept my slippers, robe, and flashlight close to the bed. However, those forays out into the night made it harder to get back to sleep. (Stop, grumbling, Nancy, I told myself over and over. It could be worse. You’ll live.)

I didn’t sleep at all the second night which was especially problematical since the following day was the all-day fast out in the wilderness. Actually, I had been looking forward to it. I fast at home sometimes, usually for 24 hours. This was a longer fast. We were all sent out to find private spaces in the forest or along the river. We were given a back pack with a notebook of spiritual teachings and prompts for reflection and writing, and a supply of water and sports-drinks. We also carried a folding camp chair.

I knew it would turn out to be a warm day, so I dressed lightly. First mistake. The morning was cold. I had chosen a large field with a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. But the tall trees to the side kept the sun from reaching the field and I began to shiver. Then shake. My dizziness increased and I did not feel spiritual at all. I finally got up and went seeking another spot, finally finding a lovely place in the forest with sun coming through the trees and a view of the river. But two hours had passed in the meantime.

Our pack included sports drinks, which I usually don’t consume, but I thought that extra electrolytes would help me, so I drank both bottles, noting how much they tasted like colonoscopy preparation.

I made it through the day, fighting my lack of sleep and my dizziness the whole time. When we gathered at the meeting room at the end of the day, our leaders led us through some debriefing exercises. They went on longer than I had hoped for; I was anticipating a small nourishing meal to end the day. Then our leader told us our fast would end at breakfast the next day. Slight let-down. But sleep awaited.

And I did sleep well. After breakfast the next morning, I discovered why the sports-drinks had tasted like colonoscopy prep. They were colonoscopy prep. Or very near to the real thing. I experienced painless but uncontrollable diarrhea all morning long, meaning I could not participate fully in the teaching. I did manage to sit in the back of the room by the door in case I needed to dash out. The staff was understanding, even did an extra load of laundry for me. But I was exhausted.

OK. So much for this tale of woe!

In spite of the challenges, by the end of the week I had no doubts that the Holy Spirit had touched and refreshed me. I was meant to be at that retreat. I wondered why at different points. Most of the teaching and the experiences the staff led us in I had been experiencing all my life. It wasn’t new stuff. But I came to realize that certain spiritual practices never get old, that for the rest of my life I still need to seek healing for past hurts and wounds, to let the Spirit reveal areas of sin in my life that need confessing, show me people and events that I still need to forgive. This is all deep stuff and the Spirit ministered to me in all these areas.

Even during that long, difficult day of fasting. At one point near the end of the day, a phrase popped out of one of the readings and I felt God giving it to me, something to carry with me into the future. The phrase was Live the glory! I’m looking forward to understanding what that means. Near the end of the afternoon, we were told to open the packet of letters written to us by family and friends. Hal had collected them in the weeks before the camp. The letters were like light coming through the leaves, warming and blessing me. Through the letters, I received a second word from God: Write the glory! An affirmation of my life’s calling. Yes.

The blessing and refreshing touched all of us at the retreat, regardless of age. It’s good to remember that.

However, I need to consider the physical challenges the next time I have a retreat or camping opportunity. Hal and I are still hanging on to our little two-person tent, the camping stove and dishes, the blow-up mattresses, the sleeping bags, and other valuable paraphernalia. Sunday evening as I was telling him about my experience at the retreat, I added, I think it’s time to give away all that stuff to whichever grandkid wants it.

In fact, maybe we could exchange our camping equipment for a few nights at a resort hotel. That sort of camping I can still do.

Cognitive decline and forgiveness

 Our Sunday school class has been going through a series on forgiveness. This week’s class focused on forgiveness and cognitive decline. (The majority of class members are over 60.) I found it enlightening. The teacher, Pat Stone, retired psychologist, gave me permission to share some of his material.

At the beginning of the class, Pat gave us a list of five words to remember, just like the nurse does in my annual wellness exam. The words were grass, computer, atom, lumber, fly. I can’t remember words or numbers out of context so I quickly made up a story I could visualize; I saw Adam (how I misheard atom) at his computer which was sitting on a piece of lumber out in the grass (the Garden of Eden), but he couldn’t get any work done because of a pesky fly. I managed to remember, but I couldn’t say the words without describing the picture. What does that say about my aging brain?

Pat told us that fluid intelligence is the ability to think, solve problems, and identify complex relationships. As our brain physically shrinks with age, this kind of intelligence decreases. This is true of everyone, whether or not they have dementia. The good news is that crystallized intelligence, the accumulation of a life-time of learning and experience, seems to become stronger with age. Wisdom can enter the picture. That’s hopeful.

Forgiveness, our teacher informed us, is a complex cognitive activity which is, of course, affected by age. Our ability to recognize we’ve hurt or have offended someone and therefore need to ask forgiveness can grow dim, as can our ability to remember that we have been forgiven. Along with that, the ability to forgive others gets more difficult as we tend to re-live old hurts.

Pat shared some characteristics of the aging brain, all of which affect our ability to forgive or to know that we need to be forgiven. These characteristics can increase as we grow older.

Perseveration is the retelling of the same thoughts and events that triggered negative emotions in the past. If it results in an endless mental/emotional loop, that makes forgiveness very difficult.

Confabulation is mixing the stories, putting together different unrelated events and thoughts from the past, resulting in a kind of personal mythology. How can one even know what to forgive?

Anxiety and depression can accompany the grieving process as the person faces what she’s lost. The inward focus precludes an attitude of forgiveness.

Disinhibition is the loss of ability to screen thoughts and emotions. The person can sound abrupt and insensitive. This characteristic goes along with impulsivity. Rather than Feel, Stop, Think, and then Act, the person is reduced to Feel, then Act. Family members need to understand and forgive.

Aphasia refers to the loss of ability to find the right word, or to have the word in the mind but not be able to say it. Years ago, I experienced this when I got soroche, or altitude sickness, in Bolivia. I knew what I wanted to say, but only nonsense came out my mouth. I was young at the time. Now I’m not, but I increasingly know the frustration of not being able to bring the right word to mind in a conversation. This may not be a full-blown case of aphasia, but it seems to be a common part of aging. How would that affect forgiveness?

Loss of executive functioning, of being able to think clearly, solve problems, or “put it all together,” also makes it difficult to seek or give forgiveness.

Other characteristics include putting on a social façade because the person doesn’t quite understand what’s going on, so chooses to pretend. Or he chooses withdrawal into silence. Both indicate a separation from the surrounding reality. A person who can’t respond can’t forgive or receive forgiveness.

And then there’s the need of the caregiver of the elderly. Compassion fatigue may make it hard to keep on an even emotional level. Patience and continual forgiveness can get difficult, especially if behavior triggers past hurts and emotions. That’s why it isn’t always a good idea for family members to be the caretakers.

As I read all this back, it seems so dark and negative, like a worse-cast-scenario. I think these characteristics describe tendencies some of which we’re all beginning to exhibit, but that they refer more to people at the end of life. The very old.  And not all of the very old exhibit all these characteristics. I think of friends and family members who lived into their eighties and nineties (and even beyond) who, while forgetful and a little distanced from reality, managed to keep the same sweet disposition they carried all their lives.

One thing the study highlights for me is the need to keep up-to-date on forgiving and asking for forgiveness—while we still have our wits about us. We may need to forgive people who have harmed us in the past, pardoning in our hearts if a face-to-face encounter is not possible. Or we may need to ask someone to forgive us. Now may be the right time.

I think of a very short poem by Canadian poet Suzanne Buffam:

On Forgiveness

It is best to forgive all sins in advance
Because afterward can be hard.

In this case in advance means “before we get too old.”

Even with the difficult connections between growing older and forgiveness, we do have the presence of the Holy Spirit who lives within us and changes seeming impossibilities into realities. And a God who understands us and loves us as much when we’re old as he ever did.

Pat ended the class with a wonderful teaching from the Apostol Paul:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Regrets--mosquitos or monsters?

The advancing years are times when our regrets come out from their cage and begin pecking on the walls of our brain. They can be tiny mosquitos or monster birds (or something in between), depending on their dominance in our thoughts.

My friend Mr. Webster defines “to regret” as “to be very sorry for….” The gret part comes from Old Norse and means “to weep.” The re prefix makes it a repeated state of mind. Drawn-out over time. We can regret something we did in the past or, perhaps more common, something we didn’t do. Persistent unresolved regrets can begin to march through our brains, letting the past trample the present. In classic understatement, that’s not good.

Being the different people we are, Hal’s regrets tend to take on monstrous proportions, while I bat away at mosquitos. Last week we were reflecting on our son David’s latest hiking adventure with his son (our grandson) and remembering all the great father/son things Hal did with David: week-long hikes on the Inca Trail, weekend excursions out on the Bolivian altiplano to visit small country churches, and all the shared activities that took place when Hal became assistant scout master. It was good.

But the one regret that continues to tease his brain—that he didn’t do the same thing for our daughter, Kristin. That regret can even give him a sense of failure as a father when I’m not able to talk him out of it. Actually, it did make Kristin feel bad, although we didn’t know that at the time. But, even more actual, she has forgiven him, helped, I hope, by the memory of all the fun stuff we did together while Hal and David were tramping about.

We had other failures as parents, of course. That comes with the territory. None of us does parenthood perfectly. But by God’s grace, sometimes the kids turn out well anyway. That certainly has happened in our case, and Hal and I keep reminding ourselves of that. And trying to let go of the regrets.

My friend Marcile told me the story of the time when her son was graduating from college and moving to another state for graduate studies. It was a turning point in his life, a leaving-home rite of passage. Marcile’s husband was expressing to their son his regrets at all the things he hadn’t done, including taking the time to pass on his mechanical skills so that Stan could fix his own car.

Stan responded, “Dad! You taught me how to be a friend! I have friends who can fix my car.”

Our regrets can blind us to our truer accomplishments—like passing on values to our children. Thank God for adult children who can set us straight.

I have regrets. Some of these mosquitos are peskier than others. Here’s a sample. I regret—

--that I didn’t keep up my Hebrew language studies or practicing my guitar. My Hebrew has joined the Lost Tribes of Israel, and my guitar skills are best kept private.

--that I never took the opportunity to visit Iguazu Falls, even though we lived just one country away.

--that I never learned how to cook Bolivian food.

--that I never asked my grandparents to tell me the stories of their lives. I was too busy growing up and establishing my own identity. Now they’re gone.

--More seriously, I think of people that, for one reason or another, I deliberately kept at a distance and probably hurt. A failure to love.

One of my tasks in these years is figuring out how to face and resolve my regrets. In some cases, I can actually do something to turn the regret around. I’ve found old journals and letters that are filling in some of the gaps of what I know about my grandparents; I’m writing these down to pass on to my kids. I’m currently taking guitar lessons. I could take a Hebrew class, but I probably won’t. My Bolivian friends have invited me over for some fine Bolivian meals, and I can live with that.

Iguazu Falls, and many other relatively small regrets, are just fading away. That’s what they should do.

In some areas, I’ve needed to ask for, and accept, forgiveness. And then let God’s grace carry the regret away on a Spirit wind. I’m in the process of learning how to do all of this. It doesn’t come automatically.

I love what poet Jarod Anderson wrote:

Our task is to become our truest selves and to smile
at the knowledge we will not succeed.

The key word here is smile. Relax. Let it go. Accept who and where we are now.

And I love the wisdom of Dag Hammarskjold in his journal, Markings, when he prays,

For all that has been, thanks.
For all that will be, yes.

That’s the kind of wisdom I want to grow into.