In old age, the life question, “Why am I here?” becomes, “Why am I still here?”
In the past fifteen years scientists have discovered that the natural human life span
may be one hundred and twenty years or more. I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news!
Does the Gospel message have any good news for the challenges of later life?
Many people have conscientiously lived the Gospel message, that it is better to give than to
receive all their lives, so they find it difficult to figure out how to answer the call, “Come, follow
me,” when they are flat on their back, stuck in a wheelchair, in pain, and dependent on family
or nursing home care.
I’ve become convinced that following Jesus in our later years is a completely different
call. Jesus does not limit the “Come Follow Me” to his years of healing the…

People talk about the stress of being a working mom, as if stress ends when either or both jobs stop.  Who are they trying to kid?

Old lady stress is 24/7.

Little Old Lady Stress
Second Stand-Up Gig

At night, as soon as you get your pillow nest all arranged to support aching backs and knees and burrow gratefully into it, doubt enters the room.  Did I lock the doors?  Did I turn off the stove?  Did I switch the wet wash to the dryer? Did I take my pills? Yes, I think I did all that tonight. No, that was last night. Oh hell, I better go check.

Then, because your bladder is your only body part that’s gotten more active with age, there are at least three trips to the john every night.  And since your early warning system is now deceased, these are made at warp speed, even on a walker. Panic is a…

A joke about seniors illustrates very clearly how our priorities change as we age. Since I am currently re-evaluating what priorities are still within my skill set, this seemed like a timely re-post. 🙂

A senior citizen, who normally rode the Senior Center Bus on their outings, hadn’t shown up for several months.  Then, one morning he showed up again.

Sam, his co-bus rider and pool playing buddy at the center, after being assured that Jim hadn’t been ill or out of town, asked him why he hadn’t been around lately.

“Well, I’ve met a lady at church and we’re going to get married. I came today to ask you to be my best man.”

“My goodness, sure I will. That’s great news. Tell me about her. Is she good looking?”  Sam asked excitedly.

“Um, well, no, not really,” Jim replied hesitantly.

“Well, at our age that’s not as important as it…

I need to start with a disclaimer. My struggle with depression and the things that have helped me may not help anyone else. And there may be things that would have helped me more. I also believe that we are born with different chemical balances and that stages of life like puberty, pregnancy, and change of life can cause balances to get more out of whack for some people.(How’s that for medical terminology.)
Also, when the chips are down, I do believe deeply that I am loved, just as I am, by the only One who actually makes much difference at my stage of life and that means I know I am not alone when down in the pit of despair.

Depression is the emotional equivalent of an abscessed tooth. Self-hatred is a judgement and judgment is like cement that sets emotion into stone.The one thing about emotions is they…

As the intercity train from Schiphol arrives at Leiden Central, we shuffle and adjust until we are standing on either side of the train doors. The twin doors heave and open with a sigh, letting rush-hour passengers out via the narrow aisle we’ve created. Once the last passenger gets off, we dash for the two cabins on the right. Each passenger holds the swinging glass cabin door for the next to catch as though passing the baton in a relay race, a perfunctory smile or nod in place.

I always sit in the upper deck. After I settle into my seat, my phone beeps. Martijn wants to share a song with me via Bluetooth. I crane forward and backward, rising from my chair, to catch a view of Martijn. Most people in the thirty-two-seater cabin have their eyes glued to the Metro newspaper, a tablet, or a smart phone. A…

There is a place of grace within each of us that I and others call God.

God is NOT a very old man with a beard, but the creative spirit or force both within and without us that can free us to begin wanting to live as one and can show us how to draw on resources not limited to our tiny personal part of the universe.

For many of us it is reached only in surrender either when we “hit bottom” or when we finally just recognize that we can let go of our ego without losing our unique place in the universe.

So the heart of Spirituality is about letting go of our illusion of being separate/better than the rest of humanity or even of the rest of creation and realizing we are only one tiny unique aspect of an awesome whole and that we sink or swim…

Breathes there a woman, from age so dead, who never to herself has said, “Now, there goes a nice set of buns.”

I was asked recently, “When did you realize you were getting old?”

Realizing and feeling are two very different things. At seventy-eight I still don’t feel old, because all the people I’ve been at different ages are still part of me. Remembering is not like imagining. Remembering takes me back. I don’t have to imagine what it feels like to be young, because I’ve been there, done that.
But, I also remember clearly the day in my fifties, when I first realized I had reached the age of invisibility. I went into an auto repair shop for some help and though several men glanced my way, no one came forward to ask what I wanted. It was a wake-up call leading me to notice that men’s heads didn’t…

Thoreau got up each morning and walked to the woods

as though he had never been where he was going to,

so that whatever was there

came to him like liquid into an empty glass.

~John Cage

there’s never really been a non spiritual truth……we live it whether we like it or not, know it or not, or live it or not……we feed each other….we live out our life as it is…..we breathe this life…..we are life…….

Intuition comes from a Latin word that means “to keep watch over.” To be intuitive is to be prepared to see some new kind of information or insight that is faint and passing. Intuitions come and go quickly. You have to watch for them. You need something like a dreamcatcher, a feathery net, to grasp them when they appear. As I get older, I become more intuitive and live more from intuition than…