Category: Aging

Posted on in Aging, Amazing Creations, Beagle, Cooking, Faith, Humor, Thanks

Neighbor Amusements

He has a pink metal flamingo sculpture in his side yard, a large black eagle sculpture on his deck. The ridiculous and the sublime? The beagle and I walk on.

There is a huge dip near a stand of mailboxes. The landscapers were to repair that dip where someone really could stumble and get hurt. They sprinkled a little dirt at the edge and threw a few grass seeds. NOT what we had in mind!

One neighbor scared herself and the rest of us. She had surgery on her knee a few weeks ago. She was totally healed and good to go. Then she slipped on their garage floor and went down on that same knee and ankle. I happened along as she was standing in the side yard, obviously stunned, in pain and in shock. Helped her to the porch, got an ice pack, got her son to open the front door, we helped her inside to lounge chair, set up ice machine. She is okay, but was truly shocky for a bit there. Today she is walking the golden retriever and doing just fine. Whew!!

There is another neighbor who complains and complains about every body and just about every thing. Then she lets her mini boxer out in her yard. That dog never gets taken for a walk. And it barks. And it barks. And it barks. They also got a mini-something and it has learned to also bark, and bark, and bark. Wish there was a forum for barking dog complaints. I did post on neighborhood Facebook about law in NYC stating a barking dog can only stay out for 15 minutes. Grrr. I have been known to stand on my front step and in frustration after hours of barking holler, “Shut up!” Not kind, but at my wits end.

We have been enjoying Ohio tomato season at its finest. There is a farmer down the road who sets up his table by his driveway. Puts out a money collection box. Hangs plastic bags from a nail in the tree. Then he loads that table with some of the best tomatoes you have ever tasted. $5 for a stack of 6 large red ones. At times he has a ‘scratch and dent’ box or another price for gigantic tomatoes.

I take mine home and we enjoy hard boiled egg and tomato sandwiches with juices dripping down our hands. Or I make Caprese salad with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil.

Rolling and cutting Basil chiffonade

I could learn to make basil vinaigrette but I like Kraft basil vinaigrette. Pour it in a pan and reduce “until it coats the back of a spoon.” Yum!

Most of our neighbors are kind and considerate. We share baked items and ideas like the salad above. We play cards on occasion and greet each other warmly. One brought us fresh corn on the cob his son was given. Yum.

A few younger families have moved in and we are grateful to see and hear the children. (We old folks have so many bodily ailments to speak about.) Just like you cannot choose your family members, we know you cannot choose your neighbors! We try to develop the good ones and seek patience with the others.

What is going on in your neighborhood? Are you watching for treasures in plain sight? Enjoy the summer weather while it lasts. Before long we will be wishing for a hot day instead of the chill headed our way!

Posted on in Aging, Book quotes, Challenge, Faith, Family, Prayer, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Yield

What to Do?

The other day I was pondering since I am going to try to do more with Inter-parish Ministry (feeding the hungry) and I already lead a biweekly small group and just finished a weekly small group, do I sign up to help in a fifth grade classroom, too? As well as write and blog? The quote below came to mind. Like many good quotes this one has controversy over who actually wrote it or said it. Dickens? Wesley? H. R. Clinton?

Quote Investigator at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/09/24/all-good/ says:

John Wesley was a prominent English religious figure whose teachings inspired Methodism. (Faith of my mother and grandparents.) The following elaborate injunction is sometimes called “John Wesley’s Rule of Life”:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

The 1799 work “Sermons on Several Occasions” by Reverend John Wesley contained a homily on “The Law Established through Faith” with the following guidance.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Neither is love content with barely working no evil to our neighbour. It continually incites us to do good: as we have time, and opportunity, to do good in every possible kind, and in every possible degree to all men.

John Wesley

I need to rearrange my writing schedule as that one day seems to always be interrupted by medical appointments. Is there time to fit another activity in this calendar? At what point am I over-committed and prone to burn out?

As they teach at Walk to Emmaus or Cursillo life leads us to Do-Be-Do-Be-Do. I will pray about these decisions. Eventually it will become clear what time to block off for writing. Currently that has been Monday and Tuesday mornings. Inter Parish Ministry has been every other week. Oh, then we throw in volleyball games at college level with Grandgirl (when the games are in town, 6 PM) and soccer games with grandson (when times coincide with what we can accomplish, Saturday mornings). My husband and I wonder why we are so tired? In our seventies and get weary over seemingly nothing.

Help Lord we need wisdom about all the good, all the ways, all the means, all the places, all the times, all the peoples, but most of all, WE WANT YOU, Lord Jesus!

Posted on in Aging, Challenge, Faith, Illness and Health, Just do it, Memories, Music, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Worship, Yield

Complain or Praise

So difficult to remember to praise when your physical being hijacks the intentions of your heart! I want to praise and today it is difficult. Then I remembered I could put on this song while I did at home PT. And in a few minutes I remembered I<Him. He >me.

As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Luke 19: 37-40

We usually think garments on the road. Jesus on a donkey. The crowd cheering. I first heard this song years ago. It is a commentary on Luke 19. Listen to this song and imagine yourself in the crowd singing this one!

The lyrics below go with the YouTube recording.

Now Jesus was going up
On his way to Jerusalem
To be lifted up on a tree
That he might draw all men to Him
The multitudes began to praise Him
While other were trying to stop them
And Jesus said, "If these hold their peace
The stones will surely cry out"

And here is one less stone
One more voice
To praise the mighty name
The name of our Lord
Here is one less stone
One more to praise Him
Blessed is the King who comes
In the name of our Lord

Now David was a man of praises
Praising God in the sanctuary
He praised Him on the trumpet and the harp
And he praised Him in the dance
I don't wanna offend nobody
But I'm gonna worship Jesus
'Cause He said if I hold my peace
The stones will surely cry out
See all the stones in the distance? How many Christians do you know who are praising right now?

I want to be the ONE LESS STONE and one more voice to praise the LORD!

Posted on in Aging, Amazing Creations, Faith, Just do it, Memories, Nature, Thanks, Traveling, Yield

Too cold. Too hot.

Awoke with ceiling fan and floor fan on full blast. Legs and feet frozen. Temperature outside 62.

Same morning worked in yard and along entrance sidewalk for about 1-1/2 hours. Drenched. Every. Single. Stitch. I was wearing. August in Ohio. Was 76 degrees and humid when I came indoors. Bob says my thermostat is broken.

Here is my new favorite perennial.

Hibiscus or Mallow Shrub

Yes, they are like day lilies in that they drop their flowers every day, but what a delight!

This rabbit is certain if he sits tall and still I either will not see him or think he is a wrought iron statue. (two slots left of Mallow.) Then he turned and ate a pyracantha leaf. No wonder that shrub does not flourish!!

Yes, I know, not the best focus. So far he has not eaten the mallow shrub to the left!

This what I got from an entire package of nasturtium seeds. Lousy ground and lousy year for gardening! Perhaps the wood chips are to blame as I now hear they make terrible mulch for growing things. Ugh!

Yes, the leaves are supposed to be mottled.

Perhaps it is because we did not sow seeds until after May 19th when we returned from Maui? So sad the happenings in Maui. Each time we watch the news we are just stunned. Those poor people. Most of them got out with their lives, but now not only the clean up but questioning if it will be safe to live there with all the chemicals in the soil. Land grabbers trying to buy up the land. The spiritual center of Maui in ruins. Lord may those who lost their lives rest in peace. May those who are still missing loved ones have Your comfort. They say identification may take months or years as in most cases the pathologists are working with dust.

The opening photo was our dinner in Lahaina at Kimo’s restaurant. Totally gone now.

Online photo. Now I wish we had taken more photos of the street!

Scanning videos and photos on line, trying to decide what best to show you. This one photo certainly sums it up. Front street as it is now. And then I find myself overwhelmed with grief for the people there.

Never mind. I have nothing to complain about. We have been told the Red Cross is the best place to give donations. One of the airlines that I had accumulated miles on asked if I wanted to donate the miles to the cause. I responded absolutely! My friend who ministers in Nepal said this Hope Force International is also quite reputable. 

https://hopeforceinternational.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general-donation-form

Whatever you do , try to give to something to the rebuilding of Lahaina. Such terrible loss.

LORD, uplift and sustain the people of Lahaina and those who love her. Send the comfort of Your Spirit to them. Show each of the readers how to best support them in their losses. May Your will be done in our hearts and in our giving.

Posted on in Aging, Book quotes, Challenge, Collection of Quotes, Faith, Listen, Nature, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Worship, Yield

Verb?

Multiple times I have run across this idea that God is not a noun. God is a verb. Of course, I did not note the places where I first began to hear this. Trying to resource it on-line led to several authors. These are by no means exhaustive!

Perhaps the most commented upon is a book by Rabbi David A. Cooper entitled “God is a Verb.” He bases his book upon studies of the Kabbalah, a branch of mystical Judaism. He writes about God as a verb and our ‘co-partnering in God-ing.’

And as Jason Derr at Huffington Post writes,

God is not a force who acts on the world through coercion, violence or the suspension of physics and free will. God is a verb, an action we bring to the world to make love, justice, mercy, joy and goodness known.

Jason Derr, contributor at Huffington Post

This quote challenges the conventional understanding of God as a fixed entity or concept, suggesting that God should be perceived as an active and dynamic force or presence in the world.

https://www.rarequote.com/god-is-a-verb-not-a-noun-r-buckminster-fuller

When I was re-reading my notes from The Shack I was only mildly surprised to find this one from Page 204!

My very essence is a verb. I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules: something growing and alive dies. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but if the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless ‘I am,’ there are no verbs, and verbs are what makes the universe alive.”

The Shack by William P. Young

Certainly this gives us each food for thought. I will likely never be able to not personalize my relationship with God. Call it anthropomorphism if you want. Just how I was raised and at 72 years old likely too late to undo the thinking. But all of this does make me think hard about the idea. How about you?

There was a statement not long ago saying, “Your God is too small.” Yes! What if our concept of God is not BIG enough? A creation that continues to expand, unfold? I am not certain about any of the arguments for or against this. I do know that the LORD shows me things I never knew before. I want to interact with the participating presence of the Holy One in whatever way I am asked to interact. Will you yield to that?

Posted on in Aging, Book quotes, Challenge, Faith, Just do it, Listen, Music, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Thanks, Traveling, Yield

Lay Your Burdens Down

On my way to prayer time one morning I heard this song in my heart.

The song makes it sound easy. Check your shame at the door. Lay your burdens down. The true story is we must be willing to let go of those things.

In 1678 John Bunyan published “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” The main character, Christian, carried a burden in the story. This is an allegory of Christian life, “a symbolic vision of the good man’s pilgrimage through life.” There are characters and monsters, difficulties and challenges. Christian carries a heavy burden on his back. All these things occur on his way to the Celestial City.

Christian RAN, but not without great difficulty, because of the heavy load on his back. He ran on thus until he came to a place where there was a hill, and upon that hill stood a Cross; and a little below, at the bottom was a sepulcher.

Modern English edition of Pilgrim’s Progress

Sepulcher means a burial vault, tomb or grave.

“So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up to the Cross, his burden fell off his shoulders and back, and began to tumble, until it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more!”

Modern English edition of Pilgrim’s Progress

My question is why do we have to be urged to lay our burdens down? It seems too often we enjoy punishing ourselves for faults and failures. As if we could be the ultimate judge of our own character! Perhaps our burdens “for” others is truly just our desire to control and direct their paths as if we think ourselves omniscient?

Bunyan encourages us to give our burdens over to the cross and the empty tomb. Let your burden roll away and be seen no more. Let the Christ of the Cross take care of you and your burdens. He is more than able.

If we released all that burden-carrying energy into simple love and adoration of Christ our relationship with God would truly change.

Until we reach the Celestial City we are kept by our Father. The indwelling Spirit can check our behavior with a conviction that is beyond any church doctrine or moral code. The Holy One can lead and guide us, protect and correct us if we are willing to come under the authority given from heaven.

Perhaps this is a challenge that can lead you into a new phase of your spiritual life? Here is the song Christian sang at the end of this chapter.

"Thus far did I come laden with my sin;
Nor could anything ease the grief that I was in.
Until I came here, What a place is this!
This must be the beginning of my bliss!

"For here, the burden fell from off my back,
And here, the chains that bound it to me, did crack!
Blessed cross! Blessed sepulcher! Blessed rather be,
The Man who there, was put to shame for me!"
Posted on in Aging, Faith, Humor, Illness and Health, medical treatment

Itchy Itchy OH SO ITCHY!!

There is a saying, “After 40 it’s patch, patch, patch.” I have been saying, “After 70 we just crumble.” No joke. I was diagnosed last year with plaque psoriasis on my scalp. Now a friend has it, too. She even gets it in her ears.

Mayo Clinic says: Psoriasis is a skin disease that causes a rash with itchy, scaly patches, most commonly on the knees, elbows, trunk and scalp.

Psoriasis is a common, long-term (chronic) disease with no cure. It can be painful, interfere with sleep and make it hard to concentrate. The condition tends to go through cycles, flaring for a few weeks or months, then subsiding for a while. Common triggers in people with a genetic predisposition to psoriasis include infections, cuts or burns, and certain medications.

Psoriasis is thought to be an immune system problem that causes skin cells to grow faster than usual. In the most common type of psoriasis, known as plaque psoriasis, this rapid turnover of cells results in dry, scaly patches.

The cause of psoriasis isn’t fully understood. It’s thought to be an immune system problem where infection-fighting cells attack healthy skin cells by mistake. Researchers believe that both genetics and environmental factors play a role. The condition is not contagious.

No one ever wants to hear the words chronic and no cure in the same sentence about themselves. Well, here we are again! At least we know it is not contagious!

I mean crumble, literally. The plaques itch and I am told not to scratch them as that can lead to hair loss. Oh great! I could become bald, too? Because frankly, it is almost an unconscious thing to scratch these areas. And when I do scratch them, there are crumbs, not tiny dandruff flakes, more like actual crumbs of scalp that drop off. Just lovely. If you want to see photos look them up on your web browser. Too gross to post here.

An auto-immune problem. Whole other type of AI. Poop. Maybe we should turn the Artificial Intelligence bot brains loose on this one and see if they can develop a safe cure?

I realize this is not life threatening. It is not cancer, or leukemia, heart disease, stroke. Just a miserable auto-immune ailment with no cure. If you have this I wish you luck. There are treatments meant to alleviate some of the symptoms for some of the time. But the symptoms return. I hope you can get a respite from them.

I feel rather like a dog! More like a woman with her hand on her head, scratching, scratching, shedding.

Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
    We are the clay, you are the potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.

Isaiah 64:8 NIV

This is one where I will ask the Father, “What were you thinking?” Maybe like chronic pain it is meant to call me back into His Presence?

Posted on in Aging, Book quotes, Challenge, Faith, Family, Humor, Illness and Health, Just do it, medical treatment, Thanks, Yield

Yikes

This week for me holds appointment to get new orthotics and shoes. I do not meet the medicare criteria even though diabetic. Thus, the appointment will be self-pay.

Another appointment for physical therapy. Only opening was during my writing time Tuesday. Good thing I worked ahead!

Another appointment for check up with internist. Are you getting the picture?

We have a dinner to celebrate someone turning 82.

There is an ice cream social with another small group. Figure 20 some folks.

I have been taking Imodium AGAIN this morning. Fear to eat and headache that comes with that running to the bathroom. So back to Tylenol.

So far, Monday has brought a lousy week here.

But, who me? Complain?!? Yep, that’s me.

When my son was very young I was cleaning the bathroom one day and thanked God that I could kneel before HIS throne and not just the one in the bathroom. This week I likely have the cleanest ceramic throne on the entire street!

Grateful we have good medical care and can afford (so far) the things we need to pay for out of pocket. Wish doctors were not ‘practicing” on us and actually had some answers for some of this stuff.

Grumble, grumble old lady.

I am not as hearty as I think I am.

So how did it all work out? A week after I wrote the top part here is my report . New orthotics and shoes are on order. Physical therapy was not as painful as feared. I have done the exercises every day, so far. (Trying to be good for strength and healing.) At dinner for 82 year old I ate some food though not a good appetite. Regretted it the next day.

Saw the internist. He ordered oodles of tests. All the results came back normal. WHAT?!?! So what is the cause of all these bathroom runs? Might never know. He sent Rx for stronger than Imodium drug. Before I took even one dose it all stopped occurring. Thank You Lord.

Maybe eating a sampler (or flight) of ice cream flavors healed me? If only that were true!

So 2-1/2 weeks of the green apple quick trots and I am fine now. Truly. My friend with sciatic pain is still suffering. Bob’s lungs are enjoying clear air this morning after lightning storm moved through last night. They say we are to have rain storms today. Part of me is hoping so.

Pain since Thanksgiving in shoulder is not gone, but no longer consuming all of my attention. Lifting things carefully and trying to use it more than last number of months.

Tonight is Bob’s last meeting as an HOA board member. Tomorrow he works at the election. A draining week for him for certain.

John Eldredge reminds us in Resilient that these are this we are going through. Going through – not necessarily setting up housekeeping here. I am glad to know this in not my final home. I love that Scripture calls me an alien, a sojourner.

Dear friends, since you are immigrants and strangers in the world, I urge that you avoid worldly desires that wage war against your lives. 12 Live honorably among the unbelievers. Today, they defame you, as if you were doing evil. But in the day when God visits to judge they will glorify him, because they have observed your honorable deeds.

1 Peter 2: 11-13 CEB

Immigrants and strangers, just wish the locals would not share their green apple quick trots and other ailments with us! Okay, so it is a little out of context, but you get the idea I hope!

Life is hard she shouted!
Posted on in Aging, Challenge, Faith, Illness and Health, Journal, medical treatment, Prayer, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth

Aging with Minimal Complaining?

Gee, did I just write that title? Sitting here at my desk watching a black cloud settling in to pour it’s rain over a nearby neighborhood, I have been pondering all the physical changes Bob and I have been going through. Sort of like having that black cloud park over our home. I was hit by a triple whammy recently.

Had a steroid injection in my right shoulder on a Monday afternoon. Just imagine the most tender spot in your body, put a needle in it. Inject steroids and see what happens. As a Type 2 diabetic those steroids (and every other situation) make my glucose react. This time to jump sky-high. Yes, next morning my glucose value was 210! I average around 79-110. Pounding headache arrived that Tylenol could not touch. Night #1 slept in recliner as no comfort to be found in the bed. Did not even try to go to sleep in the bed on Night #2. Meantime, I must have eaten something funky. In protest my bowels decided they must be emptied of all substances.

Before those things began my ear decided it was living underwater – or some such, with fluid that would not move out. Eventually, the steroid stopped making my glucose skyrocket. The BRAT diet of banana, rice, applesauce, and toast became just rice. Then a rice cake. After days of trying to hear my ear is still funky after plain Guaifenesin and Pseudoephedrine to try to dry it up. One ear felt left out so it too started to slosh. Shoulder is still touchy. Did not expect injection to heal the partial tear, just give some pain relief. Doc is still talking surgery. Need to sign up for PT. Again.

Meanwhile, Bob has had lung difficulties, pain that wakes him in the night, discomfort that makes it hard to sleep. You know, aging is NOT for sissies! Who knew the decline that comes with aging is not just losing your strength.Nothing here is unusual to humans. If we are blessed with a long life we will have illness, decline and perhaps suffering.

One neighbor fell at the community mailbox and bruised both eyes, chin, face and is fortunate not to have broken anything. Later turned out she did break her elbow. Another neighbor fell in his bathroom and needs shoulder surgery. The doc says he cannot repair both places, only one place in his shoulder. Another friend fell and broke her pelvis. Has been suffering all kinds of severe pain. Another friend flew home from Kentucky only to get home with fever, sore throat and likely Covid. Is it that new strain?

Photo by Sai Abhinivesh Burla on Unsplash

As we lose strength, dexterity and even our health can we fix our eyes on Jesus during these trials? Will we do our best to remember these are things we are going through? It seems when I experience these sorts of set-backs I never quite recover the strength I had prior to the event. Just a little slower, a little weaker, a little less young when things stabilize again.

Perhaps the most important lesson to hold on to is ‘these are things we going THROUGH, not camping here, just having to endure.’ Even chronic pain will not go on forever. When we die and go to Jesus we are promised a new body. Thank goodness for that! Cling to Jesus now. Like the tendril on this morning glory vine sculpture, we wrap our hearts and minds about Him the best we can. He holds us. We hold to Him.

Again and again I am brought back to my own prayer,

I have determined that this day, 

each time I am drawn up short by pain, 

I will praise You 

for I love You better than life – 

even better than quality of life.

Molly Lin Dutina

I am always amazed that if I pray this with focus and sincerity, (usually from a 4 x 6 card), my attention is drawn to Jesus and away from all the what-ifs and if-onlys. We cannot control our circumstances, but we can control our hearts, our mind-set. Using the pain to draw myself back to Christ is a powerful panacea.

Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

May you lean hard upon the One who loves you best and knows you even in the sleepless nights. Blessings, Molly D.

Even to your old age and gray hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

Isaiah 46:4 NIV

Posted on in Aging, Challenge, Faith, Family, Poetry, Prayer, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Yield

Loneliness

The vile mud pot that bubbles through my life. Wants to contaminate everything. Makes me irritable. Unable to see the best in others.

There was a poem I found that helped a bit. I first read this while on retreat recently. I believe Joan Chittister had it in one of her devotional books.

Home of My Loneliness   by Karl Rahner

In the curve of my heart 
lies a hollow place 
where grudging loneliness asks a welcome. 
In that empty chamber of solitairiness 
You rest Your consistent, welcoming love 
on the heartsick and patterned 
discontent of my gloomy days 
and shredded dreams. 
You care for my loneliness with affection 
during the times when no one 
and no thing soothes 
the deep yearning 
sitting listlessly 
inside the arid place of my discontented self. 
The Home of Loneliness welcomes me.

As I found solace in this poem I also remembered a piece of coral we found in Hawaii.

“You rest, Your consistent, welcoming love,” “You care for my loneliness with affection”. The Holy One knows my hollow place. I am held in that consistent, welcoming love. My loneliness, which at times I detest and want to deny is cared for by the Trinity. Even that place. Even those feelings.

Chronic illness has taught me so much about loneliness. Only those who have suffered can truly understand the plight of the chronically sick. The ambivalence of taking medication that may or may not help. The side effects that can send you into a ‘tizzy.” The wisdom of prayer and listening to your own body when making decisions about self-care. The Word says to ask God and He will give you wisdom. James 1:5-6 NIV

Photo by Tijs van Leur on Unsplash

My parents dying when I was young (aged eleven when Dad died, aged 24 when Mom died) has taught we so much about loneliness. When your family of origin is gone when you are just forming your own family, the word difficult does not describe the impact upon your life.

Next time you sense that “deep yearning sitting listlessly inside the arid place of (your) discontented self” I urge you to turn that place and those feelings to the Holy One. The internet says there one hundred verses about God holding us in or with His hand.

Yet I am always with you;
    you hold me by my right hand.

Psalm 73:23 NIV

Once during a retreat I spent several hours walking the retreat grounds and envisioning the Lord holding my right hand. Though that was many years ago, to this day I remember how poignant that experience was. You might want to try that for yourself. The Holy Trinity is always with us and walks close, even when we are unaware.

Photo by Iryna Marienko on Unsplash