AGING: EVERYBODY’S DOING IT!

by Rev. Kirk Ballin August 18, 2024

The Dash by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth And spoke the following date with tears, But he said what mattered most of all Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time that they spent alive on earth. And now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own, the cars…the house…the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard. Are there things you’d like to change? For you never know how much time is left that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s true and real and always try to understand the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile, remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read With your life’s actions to rehash… Would you be proud of the things they say About how you spent YOUR dash?

“ONE OR TWO THINGS”Mary Oliver (Devotions)

1Don't bother me.I've justbeen born

2The butterfly's loping flightcarries it through the country of the leavesdelicately, and well enough to get itwhere it wants to go, wherever that is, stoppinghere and there to fuzzle the damp throatsof flowers and the black mud; upand down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimesfor long delicious moments it is perfectlylazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalkof some ordinary flower

3The god of dirtcame up to me many times and saidso many wise and delectable things, I layon the grass listeningto his dog voice, crow voice, frog voice, now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever,

4which has nevertheless always been, like a sharp iron hoof, at the center of my mind.

5One or two things are all you needto travel over the blue pond, over the deeproughage of the trees and through the stiffflowers of lightning - some deepmemory of pleasure, some cuttingknowledge of pain.

6But to lift the hoof!For that you needan idea. 

7For years and years I struggledjust to love my life. And thenthe butterflyrose, weightless, in the wind.“Don't love your lifetoo much, " it said, and vanishedinto the world.

OPINION

Invisible and Exposed — but adaptable, as only the old can be

“The superpower my…friends and I share is that we have learned to adapt to changing circumstances, like England’s peppered moths that, during the Industrial Age, darkened in tandem with the arrival of soot. My colleagues and I gladly adapted to bifocals, hearing aids, Depends, custom orthotics — whatever we needed to keep our standard of living as high as possible. (My husband and I thought of registering for wedding gifts at the local Jack’s Durable Medical Equipment and Pharmacy.) We’ve learned to adjust when things go wrong, rather than try to control things. How do we know things will go wrong? Because that is the nature of life”. Anne Lamott, WP June 4, 2024

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The initial title for this sermon was “Getting Old: We’re All Doing It!” … But in reflection, I felt the better title is “Aging: Everybody’s Doing It!”    The word “old” has too much presumption, stigma, categorization, deterioration, and unpoetic finality to it! So, although I appreciate the rest of Lamott’s comments, I take issue with her use of the word “old”.

All of us, from the moment we’re born are aging. It’s the nature of the continuum of being alive –- no matter what form of life is manifested – be it butterfly or human -- the continuum of aging is the reality of being alive. Aging is the nature of life and in life things happen that go wrong, although I’d say “louse up” instead of wrong.

Now of course there are some who use the word aging to specifically refer to those people who have been around a few decades. But that too is a misnomer or misuse of the word, aging. Aging is not the reality of just a few of us. It is the reality of every single one of us! And as the Oliver poem reminds us, aging is the continued unfolding of the deep memory of pleasure and the cutting knowledge of pain spurred on by ideas of what it means to struggle to love life, and then -- to vanish. Every living thing makes its own flight through the equivalent mystery of country leaves, roughage and lightning, seeking and struggling to be in love with the life it lives – and then no more. How at once so wondrous and so cruel is Creation, as it seems to be to our human consciousness. As a friend of mine recently so bluntly put it, none of us are particularly pleased with the consequences of our aging. But without aging what of this world would we ever know? To know love, to know beauty, to know wonder, to know fear, to know disappointment, to know hope, to know anger, to know serenity, to know courage, to know sadness, to know delight, to know art, to know science, to know awareness. And for all of us we ultimately know the consequences of our livelong aging as our bodies and minds see the memories of what was and feel the force of the wind that is carrying us to a different way of being – unknown to our conscious minds, but still being. Who or what invented this crazy thing called “being alive”? Why weren’t we consulted? Why weren’t we given an orientation? The answer is -- Silence.

Many of the members of this community, signed members or otherwise, are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. I am in the 70s group. Those of us in these age brackets are more tuned into the paradoxical words of the poem, “For years I have struggled to love my life… and then butterfly says, “Don’t love your life too much” for those of us in these age brackets are more acutely aware of the pending vanishing into the world.

Yet we have stories. Stories to remember, stories to tell, stories to listen to. And that is certainly where we humans seem to have lost the understanding of how important the “the deep memory of pleasure and the cutting knowledge of pain” that are our stories -- at any point in our aging from birth to vanishing. How powerful are the roles of telling our stories and hearing the stories of others in giving meaning and direction to our living, our flights through life, our efforts, like the peppered moths, to adapt, and ultimately, to our vanishing. That dash between when we were born and when we die represents all the time that we have spent alive on earth. And now only those who loved us know what that little line is worth. For it matters not how much we own, the cars…the house…the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash. If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s true and real and always try to understand the way other people feel. And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before”, as the poem reminds us.

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile, remembering that this special dash might only last a little while no matter what our current age might be.

If we look at everyone in this room, each of us has a story, yet we know so little of each other’s stories.   But like the butterfly, each of us has been places, physically, psychologically, and emotionally. There has been joy, hardship, wonder, uncertainty, determination, success, injury, love, disappointment, and celebration for every single one of us. What stories each of us has to tell – if someone – someones – are available and willing to listen!

So, let each of us, of you, make an effort to hear some of the chapters of the stories of each other, because, for when we do, others want to hear our individual stories, as well. Each effort to listen to and to share a story tightens and brightens the fabric of your emerging Beloved Community. Imagine if you would that each of us in this room is a butterfly! What a picture that would be!

And finally, an EXERCISE: Sometime when you are alone, write a few sentences/a paragraph describing your perspective on life as you have aged from childhood to the present day. Fill in that dash as it has come to be so far. A very challenging yet Mindful and mind-blowing exercise.