Good Morning and welcome to Dr Ing’s Sunday soul connection. As always, we like to begin our time together by setting the intention with Naturally 7 and Let it be.
As always,I like to applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes out of your busy Sunday to just let it be. To honour your commitment to coming into our sacred community to deepen in our connection and communion with the ground being God in us as us.
The Creator and Sustainer of all that is. It’s not enough to say we believe God, we know God, we trust God but we have to consciously align ourselves with the presence that is everywhere present at every point in space and time.
I keep re emphasising this truth this fact because I know that in moments of calamities or distress, we sometimes feel that we are somehow absent or separated from the Divine; but that can never be, as we live move and have our being in the Divine Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence that is God by whatever name you choose, choose to call Him/Her/It, our Divine Beloved is right where we are.
Today's theme for our Sunday Soul Connection is ageing to sage-ing which is a theme that I have been waiting on the appropriate time to deliver.
A while back having a conversation with one of our Sunday soldiers in Costa Rica and we were talking about ageing and I can't remember what I said. But in the end, whatever the conversation was, she sent me the song that I'm going to close with today.
A great reminder that age is irrelevant, and I love the quote that I shared with you yesterday by Jules Renard, who said “it's not a question of how old you are, but a question of how you are old”.
We’re living in times where the respected elder, the aged person can sometimes seem as if we're looked down upon. Pre-industrial revolution, we were respected. We served as the political leaders, the judges, the guardians of tradition.
We were the ones that taught the young, we were the council chiefs. We prepared the rites of passages for our youngsters, we continued the tribal tradition. We were the visionaries the seers. We were the conduits for the Divine realm, the conduits between the Divine realm and the mundane earthly world.
We were the ones that people looked to revered. We were the ones who people respected, but things changed after the Industrial Revolution. Our roles became less significant.
Our power is passed down to the younger generation, from father to son, who valued the new technology, rather than the old ways of the past and the shift continued to change as we technologically progressed.
But it kind of left the elders, the aged without any sort of significant and meaningful roles. We lost our honoured place in society. We became the victims of what is known as gerontophobia, a fear of advanced age, based on how we now disempower the elderly, the aged, and the stereotypes that we have now come to see them as somehow feeble or less than able and we house them or warehouse them in what is now described as the new ghettos such as the Nursing homes and retirement communities, and this is very prevalent in the West.
I'm sure many of you will be familiar with the cultures of Africa, India or China where the aged is still respected and revered.
I was reading in China in Shanghai, which is one of the five largest cities in the world, in the late 1970s, there was only one Home for the Aged, as most of the family was shared, or most of the aged was shared within the family. They were looked after by the children. You notice the difference that here in the UK especially every town or city has multiple homes for the aged as they become a challenge to be looked after at home or whatever the need.
But people so fear this process of ageing, that they’ve lost sight of the wisdom that the aged have, our perspective has changed as we get older. We have clearer insight on how we see things. Our understanding of things, our understanding of life and what's going on around. We have more time. We're more patient. I love as I'm walking, seeing the grand children with their grandparents and you see the patience and the time that they have to spend with them. They're no longer caught up with the busyness of making a living, of earning a crust or providing for the family.
I think the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is different from the relationship that the parents had with their own children, as they were caught up with the busyness of surviving.
One of the joys of ageing is that we have freedom, freedom to be ourselves and we're no longer concerned with people's opinions of how they think we should be, or what we should be about, or what we should be doing, or how we should be acting, or how we should be dressing.
We don't have to conform because it's expected of us. Because we need that job, we need to have that good opinion we need whatever it is.
We get to see things with a new eye. We get to realise that we're not at the end of our life. Life is just a continuation, this is just a new chapter. We don't have to be concerned, our houses most likely paid for the children are away. We don't have to meet with college bills or university bills or any of those things.
We can start to do things that we've been putting off or waiting to do till we have the time whether it’s volunteering or reading books that we've been piling up waiting to find the right time to read, or learning an instrument or going to a night class. All these things we are now able to do and the blessings of ageing is that we are appreciative of our relationships so that we've had for a long time and the new relationship. I still have relationships going back to when I was at school. For 50 plus years. We've been friends. We've kept in contact with each other.
So my invitation this morning as we moved from ageing to sage-ing is to embrace wherever we are on that spectrum that we call age because it's one of the things that is coming to all of us; whether we want to fight it, stave it off, or try and hope that it won't reach us it will! But I'm here to tell you that the ageing process is not one to be feared, but one to be embraced. It's one to be grateful that you have reach the age whatever it is that you have. For for many, it has been denied. All of us here, I'm sure know people that are younger than us that have already passed away.
So let us embrace the whole ageing, the whole experience of growing old and understand that we are growing old, both gracefully and gratefully.
Gracefully because we know that it is God that is in us that is giving us the health and the strength and gratefully because we are blessed when many others who are not alive to enjoy all the things that we are enjoying.
So my sacred text this morning I want to share several with you because it is obviously one that the writers of the Bible felt greatly and strongly about.
Sacred Texts
Gray hair is a crown of glory, it is gained in a righteous life. (Psalm 16:31)
Okay, it’s not just being older that is the advantage. It’s about learning from experience. Taking the right lessons. Loving the Lord and learning from God. Take a look at my silvery locks!
Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent. (Psalm 71:9)
Frustrated by something that used to be piece of cake but now is taking so much out of you?
Isaiah 46:4 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.
The righteous flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon…In old age they still produce fruit. (Psalm 92:12-14)
I’ve caught myself saying more than once, “I wouldn’t want to be in my 20s again.” Why? Because if anything, with age we acquire wisdom. And that’s what produces fruit.
He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age… (Ruth 4:15)
So maybe I can’t jog as fast as I did at 20…but there is a source, a heavenly source, looking out for me.
Job 12:12 Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?
Not every aged person or elder or elderly, we can consider as wise, and there are older people that are more foolish than some of the younger people I've encountered. But for many ageing brings with it a certain wisdom a certain understanding of life. A certain recognition, a certain perspective, a certain awareness.
We have to remember that certain patriarchs of the Bible lived to an old age:
Noah lived to be 950, Adam lived to be 930 years old, Enoch lived to be 365 years, Job lived to be at least 210 years old, Abraham lived to be 175 years old, Joseph lived to be 110 years old, Joseph, Joshua lived to be 110 years old.
Story
Walter Orthmann, from Brazil, started working for the RenauxView textile company at 15. Recently, the Guinness World Record certified him for the longest career at the same company - 84 years and 9 days.
He turned 100 on April 19, and is described as being in good health with excellent mental clarity and memory. He celebrated his 100th birthday with the colleagues, family, and friends. “The best part about having a job is that it gives you a sense of purpose, commitment, and routine,” he commented, adding he lives a calm life and does exercise every day.
"I had to wait 110 years to become famous. I wanted to enjoy it as long as possible." Jeanne Louise Calment (1875-1997)
The oldest documented living human, this French woman had all her wits about her when she reached the "super-centenarian" age of 110. With her jaunty smile, Calment charmed the world with her upbeat attitude toward aging and life.
"Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar." John Glenn (1921-)
As the oldest person to board a U.S. Space Shuttle at age 77, Senator John Glenn exemplified the view that we shouldn't let age define us. The calendar is a useful way to let you know the date, but if you let yourself be hemmed in by your chronological age, you may lock yourself out of potentially valuable opportunities.
"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was*?" Satchel Paige (1906-1982)
This baseball legend who continued his successful career well into his 60s. We are so obsessed with age, Paige implies, that we allow it to define our identities. Break out of the mindset that makes you think of your age first, and your identity second.
"Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness." Edward Stanley (1826-1893)
Do you ever feel that you just don't have enough time to work out? Do you get to work early and stay late at the office, only to convince yourself that there are just not enough hours in the day to get to the gym? Back in the mid-1800s, this British stateman advocated, well ahead of his time, for the importance to health of getting regular physical activity. He didn't have the data to support this argument that we have now about the value of exercise, but his astute observation would withstand the most rigorous scientific test about the benefits of working out regularly.
"At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don't care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven't been thinking of us at all." Ann Landers (1918-2002)
Ann Landers reminds us that as people get older, they move away from the egocentric concerns of youth to the more realistic perceptions of midlife and older adults, who realize that they are not the center of the universe. As a result, older adults are free to do what they want, not constrained by what they construe to be the opinions of others (who themselves are thinking only about themselves).
"Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength." Betty Friedan (1921-2006)
One of the founders of the feminist movement, Betty Friedan continued to inspire women throughout her life, writing about her experiences with aging in The Fountain of Age. In this quote, Friedan captures the concept of successful aging. Let's redefine later life as a time of growth instead of inevitable decline.
"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be." Robert Browning (1812-1889)
This very inspiring characterization of old age fits with the concept of "successful ageing," which provides the view that it is possible to enjoy your later years in a way that exceeds your expectations.
By Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D.
Poem - My Rememberer, UNKNOWN
My forgetter's getting better
But my rememberer is broke
To you that may seem funny
But, to me, that is no joke.
For when I'm 'here' I'm wondering
If I really should be 'there'
And, when I try to think it through,
I haven't got a prayer!
Often times I walk into a room,
Say "what am I here for?"
I wrack my brain, but all in vain
A zero, is my score.
At times I put something away
Where it is safe, but, Gee!
The person it is safest from
Is, generally, me!
When shopping I may see someone,
Say "Hi" and have a chat,
Then, when the person walks away
I ask myself, "who was that?"
Yes, my forgetter's getting better
While my rememberer is broke,
And it's driving me plumb crazy
And that isn't any joke.
Science of Mind Reading
BODY MEDITATION
Please click here to be taken to the Body Meditation’s page.
SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER
Please follow this link.
MOVEMENT PRAYER 2
Please click here to be taken to my Movement Prayer’s page.
BUDDHIST REFLECTION
Please click here to be taken to my Buddhist Reflection’s page.
Rumination
Death has nothing to do with going away.The sun sets The moon sets But they are not gone.
Rumi
PRIDE
June is Pride month and I’d like to share the following reflection:
We celebrate our sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality.
We suffer because of the pain, brokenness, oppression and loss of meaning that too many experience about their sexuality.
We celebrate the goodness of creation, our bodies and our sexuality.
We suffer when this sacred gift is abused or exploited.
We celebrate sexuality that expresses love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent and pleasure.
We suffer because of discrimination against people because of sex, gender, colour, age, bodily condition, marital status or sexual orientation.
We celebrate when we are truth-seeking, courageous and just.
We suffer because of violence against women and sexual minorities and the HIV pandemic.
We celebrate the full inclusion of women and LGBT persons in our congregation’s life.
We suffer because of unsustainable population growth and overconsumption, and the commercial exploitation of sexuality.
We celebrate those who challenge sexual oppression and who work for sexual justice.
God rejoices when we celebrate our sexuality with holiness and integrity.
Benediction
May you be Blessed on the path on which you travel.
May you be Blessed in the body that carries you upon it.
May you be Blessed in your heart that has heard the call.
May you be Blessed in your mind that discerns the way.
May you be Blessed in the gift that you will receive by going.
May you be Truly blessed in the gift that you will become on the journey.
May you go forth in peace.
Song: I’m in my Prime - The Spinners