I love Jenkin Lloyd Jones metaphor of life, "Life is like an old-time rail journey......delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The truth is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride." I say the longer the ride, the better, yes, maybe more smoke, cinders and side tracks but more joys in families, grandchildren, friends and travel.
Everyone ends up on this ride, no one can get from here to there over the years without hitching a ride, but we have the choice to take it in our stride and find happiness and joy and many hours of it.......or not! This ride through life leads to a shift in our world from "A world of doing" to "A world of being" and once we master this we enter old age. This is where change begins. Zip along through my 30s, 40s and then into my 50s things began to change. A divorce caused many changes in relationships but also as we get older and slow down once strong and intense relationships sort of drift away. By the time we get in our 70s I think we begin to move toward a much smaller circle of caring. We get tired more easily, we find traveling difficult, we go to bed earlier. I am pushing 80 and find my circle of caring is even more narrow. As we move toward death there is kind of stripping away of non-essentials, both things and people, a kind of psychic readiness for the ultimate aloneness of death. It is not tragic or neurotic behavior, but rather the beginning of readiness to move out of the here and now and into a reality beyond understanding. The closing circle of caring means that ones goodbyes will be those who always remain the most significant, children, grandchildren, perhaps a sibling or an old Friend. We are learning to live with loss by closing the circle of caring.(Eda LeShan)
Having dinner and a movie with Mike and Andrea tonight. Patty over yesterday for coffee, I do keep busy!
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