A Second Adulthood

We are all on a journey of aging. We can do all the cosmetic work we want on our bodies. We can eat right, sleep right, and exercise right. We can have the right ancestors and the right genes. Still we get older and things begin to fall apart or slow down or quit. This can be the beginning of the end or a warning we have a limited time to start again. Starting again is an option we need to consider more often.

Too often we see someone slipping into the later years and acting in such a way that reminds us of a child. What do we say or at least think? They are moving into their second childhood. Childish ways to some extent are replacing the more logical actions of a healthy adult. Unfortunately we also associate a second childhood as one of the steps we take as we move toward the end of life itself. That makes it all the more depressing.

What would happen if we focused more upon reshaping those later years before they can turn into a second childhood? What if we took the steps we could to enter again a second adulthood? Instead of seeing that next step as leading unavoidably down the slippery slope to a sense of uselessness, we took a detour around the hill to a point where we could start climbing again. It would not be our age we would be starting again. It would be our dreams and the actions we could take to make those dreams come true.

When Dr. Robert Dale wrote his book, “To Dream Again”, he was addressing the need for churches to look at their place on a life cycle bell curve. Infancy would be at the starting point on the left hand side. The curve would rise through childhood, youth, early adulthood, stable adulthood, declining adulthood, and then down the slope to old age and ultimately death.

Dale proposed the flow of the life of a church did not have to follow such a neat curve. A church could make the intentional decision to detour off the top of the curve, go back to an earlier point, and dream again. I believe a person should be able to do the same thing.

When retirement comes, all too often a person sees the descending slope ahead of them as the inevitable path to death. Death will someday come, of course, but a person can put a few bumps and curves in that slope by daring to dream again.

No, you cannot go back and regain the energy of youth, at least not yet. A person can, however, use the wisdom gained through the extra years of life and apply it to dreams left unfulfilled. A person can dare to dream again, seek out the resources that will allow those dreams to come true, and then apply the rich wisdom and determined passion in bringing those dreams into reality.

What is passed cannot be repeated or undone. That experience can be used to make the time still ahead a period of life when once more dreams are lived out and productivity is realized.

In his own way the Apostle Paul made this vow for his life. He dared to keep dreaming. He said,

Php 3:12-14 “I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself. Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above.

Getting Started on the Bucket List

Not only has AARP (American Association of Retired People) been on my case to join them since I turned fifty, the Medicare Administration has gotten me in their grip, and now I receive the regular reminders I am old enough to draw my full Social Security benefits. I don’t mind the help with medical expenses, but I am not ready to retire and do nothing.

That is not to say I am not ready to leave this full time job and devote myself to other interests of a less frustrating nature. I have that proverbial bucket list containing a long list of goals I want to pursue when I have the time. One of those goals is embodied in this blog, the urge to write. At one time I sought to make this a weekly event. That has retreated into a hopefully once a month event. The writing interest also finds expression on a facebook page, a life log (for my eyes only), and in generating children’s stories and novels.

Beyond that the bucket list contains education in the form of earning another master’s degree, learning Spanish, and getting involved in a local archaeological dig. There are hospital volunteer responsibilities to assume, getting dirty with Habitat for Humanity, and becoming more involved in helping others to live better in this next part of life.

If you are not familiar with the movie, The Bucket List, I encourage you to see it before you reach retirement age. Morgan Freeman, one of my favorite all time actors, and Jack Nicholson are two terminally ill men who decide to live out the dreams on their bucket lists, things to do before they “kick the bucket”. Make up your own bucket list to avoid dropping dead from boredom the day after you retire.

All of this is to say just doing stuff to keep busy is hardly worth the effort. Watching television eighteen hours a day can keep you busy. Doing crossword or word search puzzles eighteen hours a day can keep you busy. Involving yourself in activities that will make you a better person and most of all make the people around you better people, those are activities worth putting on a bucket list.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, I have another motivation. I want to make my Lord glad that he choose me to be one of his disciples. It is not the personal credit that is important; rather the knowledge I have pleased the One who has given me so much already.

As the Apostle Paul records in his letter to the church in Colossae:

Col 3:23  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.

If your priority is to please the Lord in your work, then it makes no difference in what stage of life you may be or the difficulty of the task. The important goal is to give God the best you have. This involves not only the effort you are willing to put into the job, but also the attitude with which you do it. The world may see none of what you do or only part of it. The Lord, however, will see all of it, and he deserves your best.

Older, Not Old

You have probably heard the warning about aging. You start dying the day you are born. It is only a matter of how and when. There is more truth here than we would like to think.

Biologists tell us that we are losing body cells every day. For many years the addition of cells is greater than the loss of cells, hence we grow (in multiple directions!). Then there comes the time in our lives when the reverse happens. The number of cells dying outnumbers those that are created. It can be a slow process. We don’t necessarily shrink in size, but certain organs cannot repair themselves as they did before and they function on a weaker level.

How depressing! It is depressing if we think of living as preserving what we had at a specific age. Pick your age of choice. Perhaps it would be the freedom you felt as you entered your late teens. Maybe it is the sense of power and control as those first significant paychecks came in and you felt an independence you had never felt before. Perhaps you would pick the age in which you established those intimate relationships you had sought for so many years. Whatever the age might be, it offered something you had never before experienced and you look back now and wish you could have held on to it.

We start dying the day we are born. What we do with the days we have until death comes is up to us. Our lives are made up of the choices we make. Rarely will we ever face a situation in which we only have one choice. There will almost always be the preferred option, but others will exist.

Growing older is like that. We don’t have to be old. We can just be older. It is a choice. It is a mindset. It is a way of facing life.

Jesus confronted the Apostle Peter in the days before his ascension about Peter’s attitude and choices. What was important was the present moment.

Joh 21:18 I am telling you the truth: when you were young, you used to get ready and go anywhere you wanted to; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you up and take you where you don't want to go." (In saying this, Jesus was indicating the way in which Peter would die and bring glory to God.) Then Jesus said to him, "Follow me!"

Events would take place in the future over which Peter would have no control. Those events, however, should have no affect on Peter’s loyalty and faithfulness. Peter was to see each moment as an opportunity to follow Jesus faithfully.

When individuals get old, the tendency is to focus upon “what used to be”, the good old days. The priority is upon what was lost rather than the choices that still exist. Old is when regrets outnumber dreams. Old is when the “if only’s” fill our thoughts more than the “what if’s”. Old is when we grieve over what we once could do and ignore the joy we can experience in what we still can do.

Peter would be able to follow Jesus throughout his life. He would have to change what he did, but he would still be expressing his faithfulness and loyalty. Peter would get older, but he could choose not to be old.

This week contains two relevant events. On Monday evening I shared in a senior adult banquet with nearly 250 other individuals. We celebrated our ages and applauded the eldest among us. She was 93. We listened to a guest speaker who was more than a few years younger than we. He told us we have a legacy to leave for those who follow us, and we need to be working on that legacy until we surrender our last breath.

The second event is I turn 65, a senior adult in anyone’s eyes. I fully intend to get older, not old. Faithfulness to my Lord and Savior says I still have a choice.

Preparing To Let Go

Sixteen years ago I stood by my father-in-law’s casket and said something like, “This is all happening too soon. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. You were supposed to be around for a lot more years!” He was a few days shy of reaching his 68^th birthday. His daughter and I had been married less than twenty years. I had laughingly told people that when I decided to get married, I went looking for a man I thought would make a great father-in-law and hoped he would have a daughter acceptable as a wife. I found the best of both.

The rheumatoid arthritis that destroyed his lungs came fast, silently, and ended his life while he still had much to enjoy. My wife and I had looked forward to many years of his grandpa role for our two sons. We were not prepared to let him go. Now we must try to get ready to move once more through the same process. Letting go can be a hard decision.

Last week was a time of touring nursing homes, questioning administrators, and evaluating what the elder generation can handle. The words were wise but not easy to take coming from a family counselor who said, “Tom, you may want your parents to be happy in the last years of their lives, however many that may be. But you cannot focus on what will make them happy. You have to focus on what is best for them. That is the way you will be the son they need you to be.”

I watched my parents turn a farm of rocky Kentucky clay into a garden. Pop could make a limestone outcropping produce wagons full of corn. We didn’t measure our potatoes by the pound. We measured them in hundred pound feed sacks. My parents were strong. In a little boy’s eyes, they would always be strong.

They aren’t strong anymore. They have moved step by step from the farm to a house with a garden to a small two-bedroom apartment to an assisted living facility. Now we are looking for a nursing home that will offer skilled care when it is needed. One of these days I will have to let them go. That will be the hardest decision of all. I will have to do it, not because it will make anybody happy, but because it is what is best.

It doesn’t make it any easier that my mother-in-law has slow growing but terminal cancer. We have to prepare to let her go as well. In none of these cases do we know when, only that it is inevitable. We can try to think in terms of happiness, but always it comes back to what is best.

Jesus looked across the centuries and saw in me an older man who just wanted to be a little boy again. The little boy could be happily ignorant of taxes and bills, cattle prices, and tobacco poundage. His dad always had everything under control. He could play in the winter snow, hunt arrowheads after a summer rain, and help his mother pick strawberries eating as many as he put in the bucket.

Jesus saw him and said, “If you are tired of carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the yoke I give you. Put it on you and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest. This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 CEV) Jesus’ listeners understood. A young, untrained ox would be teamed with an older, experienced animal. Sharing the yoke, the younger would learn from the older. They would pull together but the strength and experience of the older animal would make it easier for both.

Someday I will have to let my parents go even as my wife must let her mother go. Preparing for that time is not easy. That is the human perspective. The spiritual view is so much better. It is not only for the best, it also offers happiness, eternal happiness – Revelation 21:1-4.

Making the Hard Decisions

Near the end of the Gospel of John (21:15-19), Jesus tells Peter things will be changing for him in a few years. He will get older and lose his freedom to choose. People will bind him and take him where he does not want to go. This week my family is taking the first steps in preparing to move my parents from an assisted living community where a reasonable amount of freedom exists to a new residence where the restrictions will be much greater. This is not a fun time.

As a little boy on the farm I never thought about taxes. I never gave much thought about the price of beef or pork. The ideas of insurance and long term health care were the farthest things from my mind. If those things needed to be considered, then my parents took care of that. I had ball games to play and unexplored territory to cover and unfortunately tobacco to hoe. Now the roles are reversed. Pop is no longer concerned about the price of hogs or tobacco. Paying the insurance bills is someone else’s responsibility. My sibling and I have to make the hard decisions.

I remember seeing my father in those early days sitting at his desk and going over books I didn’t recognize. Later I learned those were checkbooks, state crop reports, and documents showing animal stock market price trends. There were magazines with information on crop seed, weed control, and pesticides. All were topics that held little interest for an eight-year-old boy, but were critical for the one having to make the hard decisions. Now I’m reading documents on elder law, Medicare, and Medicaid. There are not only the rules, regulations, and what to prioritize, but also the emotions.

For an hour and a half I listened to and questioned an expert on local nursing homes and the essential elements to be considered when choosing a new residence for my parents. The basics like sanitation and house rules were reviewed. The stability of local administration was a factor to be given weight. The government restrictions in the financial realm were covered. Millionaires might not have to worry about such things. The rest of us do.

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament is not one often studied which is a shame. It is one of the most human writings in the Bible. The author does not fear to express his frustration with life. He sees beyond the limits of materialism and earthly power. He recognizes that for life to have meaning it cannot be grounded in anything limited to this world. His search for meaning reflects that of all humanity. He has much to teach us.

In the last chapter the Teacher of Ecclesiastes gives a poignant description of old age. (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8) With graphic images he speaks of physical deterioration and the loss of emotional control. As with the words of Jesus to Peter, there comes a time when someone else will make the decisions for us, and things will not be as we might wish. Someone else will become the parent and we will once more be the child.

Proverbs 3:3-6 can prepare us for those days. With love, faithfulness, and trust in God as the foundational pillars in our lives, we can face those days with an assurance that things will be in the hands of God. Keep love and faithfulness close to your heart. Look to the One who has your best interest in mind all the time. Depend upon the One who has the answer to every life situation that will bring you closer to his will for your life. Trust the One who was there with you in the beginning and will be with you through the end. Trust the One with divine wisdom to help you with every decision.