Aging Capriciously

An old Celtic Saying goes: “When God made time, he made enough of it.” How could this be? How could there ever be enough time? Most of us are fond of declaring that we have “no time” or that we are “too busy.” The song “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce has the following lyrics:

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them.

We are always running short of time, running out of time, not having enough time, having to makeup time, having to catch up, running late, etc., etc. “No Time, No Time” has become the mantra of the 21st century. How could God have made enough time? We never ever have enough. What could the Celts have been thinking?

Well, what if the Celts were right? What if there is enough time? What if all of our running around and frantic efforts to save time are like trying to stop the wind or push the tide back into the ocean? Imagine, someone with a bucket on the beach trying to shovel all of the water back into the ocean before it can creep up on the beach. What if we are doing the same thing with time? What if all of our efforts to save time simply are wasting our lives? What if we lived one day at a time and one moment at a time each day? What if we could ignore time and believe that “God made enough of it.”

Repeat the following thought to yourself: “Today, tomorrow and next week, there will be enough time.” You will always have enough time. You will have no more time shortages. No more running out of time. There will always be enough time to do what you need to do. If you truly believed this, what difference would it make in your life? What would you do different today if you knew you would always have enough time? How would your life change if you always had enough time?

Christmas Time is the celebration by Christians of the birth of Jesus Christ. He was born in a manger to Joseph and Mary. Christians celebrate December 25th as the birth of a man whom they claim to be the son of God. Other religions would disagree that he was a God, but none would disagree that he was a great prophet. His message was simple: love everyone: sinner, enemy, friend and family alike. The Christmas season today has become associated with gift giving, family traditions, Santa Claus, Christmas stories, Christmas trees, burning candles, holiday lights and the holiday shopping season. Christmas is said to be a time for children, who tend to be the recipients of the most gifts and toys. We all enjoy seeing the expression on the faces of little children as they unwrap a special gift with pretty wrapping paper and ribbons and bows. During the Christmas season, many spend a great deal of time trying to find the right gifts for their older friends and loved ones as well.

Some people feel that Christmas Time has become too contaminated by the incessant advertisings and commercialism that litter the holiday season. Shopping used to start after Thanksgiving; it now starts after Halloween, a full month earlier. Indeed, it is easy amid the hustle and bustle to lose sight of the main reason to celebrate this season. A great prophet or God himself, Jesus Christ brought a message of love and peace to the world. It is ironic that during times of war and strife many people preaching his message have been sarcastically labeled as peaceniks, doves and war protestors. These labels are applied as though peace and love for other human beings was a bad thing. If Jesus were alive today, would he be a peace protestor, a wall street occupier or would he be a war supporter? Would Jesus be in the frontline of the anti-war movements or would he be Pro-War? Would Jesus be a dove or a hawk?

If you celebrate Christmas, how much time do you put aside to celebrate the message of Love and Peace that Jesus brought to the world? Is Christmas Time for you a celebration of the Peace Message or do you support a War Message? Do you work for peace or do you work for violence? Does your belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness extend to all human beings or just those of your own religion and nationality? This Christmas Time, will you spend as much of your energy on peace and love as you do shopping and putting up your Christmas tree and household decorations? How will you extend the message of peace and love to others in the world this Christmas Time?

Racing against time or racing the clock. Is there any difference? Time is short, you are running late and you just found out about a deadline to meet: A play to catch, a movie to watch, a party to go to, or some other event and you have to move fast to make it. Time is critical; you can not waste a second. You must do only what is called for and in the most efficient order possible. Can you do it? You don’t know but you will sure try. You are racing against the clock. Did you ever watch that TV show, where they were given a grocery cart and they had one minute to fill it with as much stuff as they could? I think it was called “Beat the Clock.” The contestants raced like crazy to try and put as much of the “high” value items as they could in the shopping cart. Forget the pickles, get the steaks in!

How often do we run like there is no tomorrow only to find it did not make a bit of difference? The play was cancelled. The party was called off. You were the only one there. They changed the date and did not tell you. Something came up at the last minute. Who cares about your time? There was really no race. You were racing yourself. You were the only contestant in the event. Did you think you were so important that your presence would be missed? Was the race really important?

Each day, you probably spend some of your time racing against the clock. When you are racing against the clock, are you spending your precious time on the “high” value things of life? Are you going for the steaks? Or are you simply running like a rat in a wheel and going nowhere fast. Where did you get to? What prize did you win? When was the last time you raced the clock? Did you beat the clock or did the clock beat you? How much of life do you spend racing time? Is it worth the prize?

Sorry if I am late posting today. We headed down to Mexico for the Holidays and will be here for a week. I did not have Internet access yesterday but am back on line today. We checked into this wonderful hotel in San Carlos and there is great internet access. I will post tomorrow for the Christmas Holiday and then sign off until Monday, if you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very Happy Holiday and if you do not, then have a wonderful day and a great weekend. John

Borrowed time – We have all heard the expression “you are living on borrowed time.” Of course, this means to go on living after the time you should have died. The phrase goes back to the seventeenth century (see http://www.phrases.org.uk). My sister was given several weeks to live after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She went on to live five more years and even survived one round of hospice care to live a few more years after that. She just did not want to die. She lived many happy if not healthy years on borrowed time. I often wondered who she paid this time back to and who she actually borrowed it from.

I think if you live life like there will be no tomorrow you are living on borrowed time. We all know people who disproportionately flaunt the risks of life. People who drink and drive are living on borrowed time. People who ride motorcycles without wearing a helmet are living on borrowed time. People who do not exercise or watch their weight are living on borrowed time. People who smoke are living on borrowed time. Each day you take unnecessary risks, you are living on borrowed time. You may cheat death each day, but it is also a day that you owe to someone and you will eventually be called upon to pay. The actuaries are betting millions that you will die when they say you will and people living on borrowed time generally pay up when due.

Are you one of the people living on borrowed time? What is the cost you pay for living on borrowed time? Who do you borrow this time from? Who do you pay it back to? When do you think they will come to collect? I think you borrow it from those who love and those who care for you. They would rather have you than the money.

The oldest person in the world! This is a title that takes years to earn and once you earn it, you probably will not hold it very long. Last week, the oldest living person in the world was Besse Berry Cooper, a 115-year-old great-great-grandmother from Tennessee. The chance to earn the “oldest living person” in the world designation is slim for most of us. However, recent studies report that the odds of living past 100 are growing. The US Department of Census projects that there could be over four million Americans reaching age 100 or more by 2050. Super Centenarians are those people who live to over 110 years of age. A study by Robin and Vaupel (2001) shows that in the world as a whole, the number of validated super-centenarians for whom adequate documentation is available is increasing. Other evidence also points to a world-wide increase in lifespan, thus making the age of 100 increasingly more likely for many of us.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like to live to 100 or more? You would have set foot in two centuries during one lifetime. You would have lived in five generations and possibly be a great great or greater grandparent. If you had been born in the year 1900 and had lived past the year 2000, you would have lived through the horse and buggy era and now be living in the age of rockets and space travel. You would have lived in a time when there were no TV’s, cell phones, radios, computers or Internet and now be living in a time when all of these are common. What if you were born in 2000 and live to be 100? You would make it to the 22nd century. If we accept that we will make as much or more progress in the next 100 years as we have in the last, what changes do you think you would see? It is hard to imagine the same degrees of changes taking place between 2000 and 2100 as between 1900 and 2000 and yet it is inevitable. Furthermore, the changes will probably dwarf those of the past century. What do you have to do to live to 100? Studies seem to point to the following common factors among centenarians:

• Continuing to play a role in society
• Keeping in good physical shape
• Taking preventive measures against serious disease
• Looking on the bright side of life
• Being intellectually stimulated
• Believing that happiness can be achieved
• Having financial security
• Having a good life expectation
• Maintaining satisfactory social relationships

(Quality of life and longevity: a study of centenarians, Mariosa Dello Buono, Ornella Urciuou, Diego De Leo in Age and Ageing 1998; 27: 207-216)

Well, looking at this list, do you have what it takes? Will you live to 100 years of age? Do you think you might even obtain the oldest person in the world title? What would have to change in your life for you to be in the running? Which of the above factors do you need to work on? Would you like to live to 100 if you could be healthy and happy to that age?

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” This is the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. He was referring to the time of the French Revolution. It is perhaps the most famous line in all of literature. Why? Not because we relate to the French Revolution, but because we can all relate to the sentiment. How many days in your life have you felt it was the best of times, but also the worst? We would probably all be rich if we had a dollar for each day or each time we felt this way. Life brings us many ups and downs. Life is seldom all joy and happiness. In one day, in one hour, many of us can go from high to low. A brief moment can bring us news that will make us supremely happy or thoroughly sad. Death and destruction come at inopportune times. We can not plan them or control them. Happiness can be equally whimsical. One minute we can feel elated over some momentary triumph and the next minute we are dejected because it was not greater.

We have all had many days that were the best of times and the worst of times. Each day of our lives that we awake healthy can start out to be the best of times. By the end of some days, it has become the worst of times. We may end the day feeling totally used up and wondering if there is not more to life. The pressures and tribulations of the day have beaten our spirits down. By bedtime, we are ready for the oblivion of sleep. Happy only for a good nights rest that will help restore our mind and body, but mostly our willpower to face the next day. We hope to awake refreshed and ready to believe again that today will be the best of times and not the worst of times.

Can you get up today and face live with optimism and not defeat? Do you get up each day and look forward to the challenges that the day will bring? Have you been able to grow older but remain optimistic about life? Do you fully expect that there will be much pain but also great happiness in your life? Is today the best of times or the worst of times for you?

There are many metaphors that involve time: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2-12-22) “God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.” (Genesis 1-2). A metaphor gives us an alternative picture of reality. Some metaphors can be taken quite literally, others are more symbolic. Since we cannot feel, taste, see or touch time, most time metaphors have to be symbolic. However, we can measure time, and that fact makes some symbolic interpretations of time very problematic. Could Jesus Christ really have destroyed the temple and rebuilt it again in three days? Did God really create the world in only seven days? Here is a good explanation of the relationship between symbols and metaphors from the website of Dr. Rick Singleton, a professor at Southern Virginia University:

“One of the most recognizable objects from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is the One Ring. It is the object that controls the other ring wielders, yet it is also the only one that has that power and will of its own. The One Ring symbolizes power, dominance, corruption, and evil. When we take the phrase “One ring to rule them all,” it then becomes a metaphor. Because the One ring is the subject and the object of the phrase, but it’s A is B relationship is simple to understand once we know the idea behind the ring and the phrase behind the metaphor.”
http://www.hatrack.com/svu/tolkien_lewis/OSC%20Paper.html

It would be impossible to speak about time without speaking in symbols and metaphors. Each reflection in my these blogs I do represents an abstraction that hopefully many of you reading them can relate to. I have tried to make these reflections interesting and useful by putting these abstractions on time into a different light or by creating new metaphors for some of them. The power of symbols and metaphors is in helping us to see and understand the world and ourselves in a different light. However, as we become accustomed to symbols and metaphors, they lose this power because we take them for granted. We allow them to become worthless because we no longer think about them.

For instance, when you see the Statue of Liberty, do you think about all the immigrants that came over and about the fighting that went on to free us from the British? When it is the Fourth of July, do you see Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress debating the text of the Declaration of Independence? Many metaphors become clichés such as: “sharp as a knife”, “he was a lame duck” or they were “like two ships passing in the night.” Repeated use brings dullness to the edge of metaphors. We say them, think we understand their meaning and quickly move on. In doing so, we ignore the deeper implications of each. We miss the more profound thoughts that are hidden beneath our surface understanding. For instance, why were they like ships passing in the night? What happened to them that they lost or missed their chance for a relationship? When did they first start to pass each other? What could they have done differently to not miss each other in the dark night?

My goal in this blog is that these many metaphors, symbols and concepts about time I am presenting will help you to think about the world and your life differently. I hope you will begin to see a different picture of those things that you may take for granted about time. Did God really make the world in seven days? Does it matter? What do you think?

Dinner time – “The word “dinner” comes from the French word dîner, the “chief repast of the day”, (Wikipedia). It is a time for family and bonding in some homes. In others, it is simply a time of eating. Dinner time in many cultures is associated with ceremony and a degree of formality. There once was a time in the U.S when people dressed up to come to dinner on a regular basis. Traditionally, the head of the household said a blessing and then dinner was served. Increasingly, in our strapped and harried culture, dinner time has become a time simply to grab a quick microwave meal and catch the latest sports event on TV. The time for socializing and sharing the day’s experiences has been traded for time in front of the TV watching the news. Mom’s homemade cooking has been traded for Mrs. Field cookies and Papa John’s Pizza. Dinner is simply a time to stock up on high fat, high calorie pre-processed foods. Witness the current obesity in American society.

We can yearn for the past, but the past is not always as we remember it. Dinner time in some historic periods has been a time of fasting and even deprivation. There simply was not enough food to go around and many would go hungry. A blessing would have been said to simply help find food and to survive until food could be found. Today there are still places in the world where people do not have enough to eat. The following facts are from the site:
“Bread for the World” ( http://www.bread.org )

• 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago.
• Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes–one child every
five seconds.
• In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or
families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food.

These figures come from studies done by Global organizations working to reduce poverty. Perhaps in twenty years or so we will have made a larger dent in these figures. Perhaps we will not if the world has to keep struggling with war and terrorism, if we do not see the urgency or we do not make it a global priority to help reduce poverty. The value of sitting together at a well stocked dinner table gets trumped by the value of security and freedom from oppression. Have you ever wondered why we cannot have both values together? How do we bring this choice upon ourselves in the first place? Are war and poverty inevitable? Have we accepted that they are beyond our control? Is it simply our nature as human beings to have to suffer? Would we really want a world that was like the Garden of Eden? Or would we soon become bored and start throwing apples at each other?

Have you ever sat down at dinner and not had enough to eat? Have you ever passed the plate so someone else could eat and you would not? Have you ever passed the plate to help others in the world to eat? Is dinner time a time of joy for you or a time of strife? What would help to make it more joyful? Would more food help? Would more socializing and talking to each other help? Would doing more to help those with even less than you have help?

Do you measure journey time or measure destination time? I have a patch on one of my jeans which says “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” How often in life do we get so wound up with what we are going to do, or where we want to go that we forget the joy in the journey. Our destination, our goals become so overpowering that we forget the process, we forget to live each day. We live in the future and never enjoy the minutes which are happening one at a time. We become so consumed with our purpose or goals that we ignore the flowers and birds that surround us. We forget to smell the roses. The famous atheist and socialist Emma Goldman said “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” We take ourselves and our lives too serious. How often have you known someone who upon experiencing their first heart attack and surviving it suddenly decided to reprioritize what was important in their life? This wakeup call for mortality helped them to realize that they were missing out on what life is meant to be. Why take a trip if you cannot enjoy the journey?

Every so often when I was growing up, my father would take us on a trip. It was usually to visit my grandparents in Alabama. I hated those trips. My father would drive like a maniac, watching the clock every minute to see how he could cut minutes or seconds off the trip. He was obsessed with how fast he could get there. Sometimes we would sleep in the car through the night. We would often pass restrooms because he would not waste time stopping. When he finally got around to it, we would pee at the side of the road. There was no stopping for road side rests. No stopping for any sights or marvels that the world might put up for display. My father’s sole and unremitting quest was to see how fast he could get us from NY to Alabama.

These trips were hated by me, my mother and my siblings. They were never fun nor do I remember one minute of pleasure on any of these trips. It was not until I was 13 that I had a good trip down south. My mother decided to take a train with my two sisters and leave early and my father and I were going to go with my Uncle Paul and his father (Pop Hofer). My uncle was not going to let my father spoil a perfectly good trip by ignoring the sites along the way. For the first time in any of these trips, we stopped. We stopped in Washington D.C. to see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. We stopped at Luray Caverns and visited the underground caves. We stopped at Ruby Falls to see the underground waterfall. We stopped at Lookout Mountain and rode the train up and down. We stopped to eat along the way. We stopped at a motel and stayed the night. I will never forget this trip or my uncle for helping me to find a life along the way. I learned then that the journey can be as important as the destination.

What if you get there and you hate it? What if you have not learned to enjoy life along the way? What if you never get there? What about the people who had a first heat attack and it was their last? Do you stop to smell the roses? Do you stop to pick raspberries? Is your life so busy that you don’t enjoy the journey? Do you have to have a “heart attack” to teach you to enjoy the journey?

Every now and then:

“Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound
of my tears,
Turn around,
Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the
years have gone by.” (Total Eclipse of the Heart, Bonnie Tyler)

I love the words in this song. They have a way of causing me to reflect on those things in my life which seem to happen “every now and then.” I have made the following list of my most important ones:

• Every now and then, I get wistful, thinking of the people I once loved.
• Every now and then, I think of the friends and relatives long gone.
• Every now and then, I feel sad about the things I cannot undo.
• Every now and then, I go back to memories and places I will never see again.
• Every now and then, every now and then, every now and then, I just get
stuck. I wonder whether life makes any sense and if living longer is of any
value.

I think of the mistakes that I have made and wonder if I can undo them. I think of the people whom I have hurt and wonder if forgiveness is still too late. I think about the people I used to know who no longer talk to me or seem to want my friendship. I think about the opportunities I have missed and wonder whether I have learned anything from these mistakes. Every now and then I wonder whether my life has come to its apex and I should just “retire” like so many other people my age. I think of those fighters who fought past their prime when we all know they should have hung up their gloves. I wonder whether I am fighting for fame, fortune, glory or simply to make a difference. Every now and then, I wonder whether or not anything I have done has made one difference to the world and whether it’s worth the ongoing fight to make a difference.

We all have our every “now and then.” There is a sadness to my list. Perhaps your list would be more joyful or fun. What are the things that pop up for you “every now and then?” Can you make a list? Why do you think these things keep popping up? Do they represent regrets or unfinished business? Do you think they would come up less often if you could somehow put them to rest? What stops you?