Living in the sunset is a challenge. The desire to grasp and absorb infinite nuances of color and contrast before darkness invades can be overwhelming. Only the assurance of a new day and another sunset, restrains despair. Exhilaration and frustration are constant companions. I hold no regrets for my life, but I can say with confidence, I have never felt more alive than now.
Life in the Sunset – Jan 2020
My blog posts are meager attempts to share sunset experiences. Certainly they will be inadequate. As we all know, the grandeur of sunset is beyond description.
Six Word Memoir
Some years ago I read Not Quite What I Was Planning. The book is a collection of six-word memoirs. It originated from a project by on-line magazine SMITH that solicited submission of peoples’ life memoir stated in six words. I recently shared that I am writing my memoir. After working on it some, I’m thinking I might settle for a six word memoir. Here are a few examples from the book:
Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears.
Born in the desert. Still thirsty.
Macular degeneration. Didn’t see that coming.
Kentucky trash heap yields unexpected flower.
Thought long and hard. Got migraine.
Thinking about my own memoir. Here is what I came up with:
I Knew. I Know. I didn’t’t
How about yours?
The Progeny Parable
The wedding was stunning in every way, the bride a fantasy princess, the groom Sir Galahad personified. Their only rival for attention were spectacular vistas framing the ceremony. Family and friends gathered to witness and celebrate. A spectacular honeymoon was almost anti-climactic.
Promising careers… white picket fences … beautiful people.. life is good, almost perfect … almost.
Months and years pass, life is good, almost perfect…almost.
Empty nursery, dreams of progeny unfulfilled. Doubts and questions, Why? Who?
God’s will? Surely not.
Google it. No stone unturned. Calendars, thermometers, timing is everything. Hurry home, now is the time. Doctors, meds. Try harder!
Surely it is God’s will.
Resignation. It is not to be.
Foster parenting. Hearts aching. Choice, not chance.
We’ve done it. Nursery songs ..diapers.. Mama…Dada
Life is almost perfect..almost. No matter. Thank you God.
Life is good.. love abounds. No calendars…no thermometers, no demands.
Could it be? Yes! How could it be?
Did we just get out of the way?
Surely it’s God’s will.
Boring Christianity
No one tells you that Christianity is a 70 to 80 year grind in becoming more kind, more gentle, more giving, more joyful, more patient, more loving. You learn that God isn’t in the rocking praise band or the amped up worship experience. What you learn after college is that Holy Ground is standing patiently in a line. You learn that Holy Ground is learning to listen well to your child, wife or co-worker. Holy Ground is being a reliable and unselfish friend or family member and being a good nurse when someone is sick. Holy Ground is awkward and unlikely friendships. Holy Ground is often just showing up.
Richard Beck
Old age
It’s easy to issue forth proclamations from the Olympian heights of age when we are no longer at the mercy of rampant hormones, parental expectations, and peer pressure. Every generation embraces their own slang and music, while harshly dismissing the slang and music of the subsequent generations. The warm cocoon of nostalgia makes them forget the pettiness and drama that dominated their lives.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Meaning
Meaning that is self-made is in the last analysis no meaning. Meaning, that is, the ground on which our existence as a totality can stand and live, cannot be made but only received.
For to believe as a Christian means in fact entrusting oneself to the meaning that upholds me and the world; taking it as the firm ground on which I can stand fearlessly…It means affirming that the meaning we do not make but can only receive is already granted to us, so that we have only to take it and entrust ourselves to it.
Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
“apoplectic rigidity,”
an inability to see the world as it is, but rather only those nightmarish elements that justify the hatred and rage that is the source of your self-worth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Self Improvement
“Self-improvement must not be confused with the pursuit of kingdom righteousness” (How Long, O Lord?
It can feel so Christian to take better care of ourselves, to improve ourselves in all the same ways the world coaches people to improve themselves — diet, exercise, sleep, even meditation, and probably prayer.
Aging
In Rainer Maria Rilke’s novel “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge,” the protagonist notices that as he ages, he’s able to perceive life on a deeper level: “I am learning to see. I don’t know why it is, but everything penetrates more deeply into me and does not stop at the place where until now it always used to finish.”