End of Days

Been thinking about end of life lately.  Friends and relatives passing tends to do that to you.  So many of my friends have lost one or both parents, or are having to prepare for the end as health issues and quality of life issues get more critical for our folks.  Lost my dad in 2004 and mom’s memory of the past is gone now.  It’s that whole circle of life thing, with our kids starting families, parents passing on and us having health and early aging issues, while still providing help for our parents now and kids as needed.  It’s always been this way, for our parents, their parents and on back in time.  It feels comforting to be a part of this pattern of life on the planet for me.  Like being part of a flowing river or the wind blowing through the trees.  Each little drop or air molecule doing its part in a bigger movement that has gone on as long as time.  Some think this makes their own life inconsequential, but I think it makes it that much more beautiful.  Beautiful in that we can see and do so much in the time we are given to touch others, take care of others, see, hear, do and enjoy life and also in the whole majesty of life.  Yes I miss and grieve for family, friends and even pets passing, but I also want to celebrate their existence and remember for as long as I can.  When it is my time, I hope to go with a fond regard for what I have lived and no regrets for what I have not.  I have to say, I feel very grateful at this point in life and believe I am ready when my time comes.  And if that time was tomorrow, I hope you will remember my crazy ramblings with a degree of fondness as well.

How old am I?

How old am I?  You’ve probably heard the rhetorical question about how old you would think you are if you didn’t know (and didn’t have a mirror handy!)  Being a person prone to self-reflection, I wondered how old I would think I am.  Like most men, I do have a bit of a 12 year old that peeks out on occasion. I am also in decent health, stay fairly active, am open to learning about new things and observant.  Those traits keep me from being too much of a “grumpy old man”.  My dad, when he was still alive often joked about the “old people” in his church, who he would find later to be the same age or even younger than he was.  So in his 70 and early 80’s he felt younger than he imagined he should feel at 70+.  He also stayed active until his last year .  But I am turning 60 this year.  That is a milestone, for sure.  I retired a few years back, another milestone.  I started wearing glasses in my late 30’s, was diagnosed with borderline high blood pressure a few years back and had other aches and issues associated with a person of my age.  I would have said that I feel younger than my years, or that I am younger at heart than others my age, but that is making assumptions that are not necessarily true, just a bit self serving and maybe a bit of self denial as well.  No, I feel almost 60. I am bald, grey haired (what’s left), I have  to fight the various issues of age and am seen as an “old guy” by the majority of people I run into daily.  I’m ok with that, I earned it.  Yes, I will keep watching my weight, working out, taking vitamins, learning about new things, but I am no longer young.  I will be lucky to have 10 more good years (without serious health issues, loss of some ability I have now, etc.)  I am ok with that too.  Sure I could live 20-30 more years, but probably only about 10 will allow the level of activity and functioning and freedom from serious medical  concerns I have now.  So I plan on making the most of the next 10 while I can.  I will try to enjoy every day I have and not plan too far in the future for the stuff I really want to do. Not bad advice at any age.

My Spiritual Journey

My Spiritual Journey

Or how I went from full-time Baptist to “here”  in my life.

One of my first memories is of standing in a crib in the nursery of Central Baptist Church in Lawton, OK waiting for my mom to get me to go home and have Sunday lunch.  I grew up in that church, going Sunday morning and night, Wednesday night, church socials, retreats and camps and socializing with church friends.  I had friends in the neighborhood that attended other churches, including one catholic, but got all my religious instruction at the feet of my parents and the Baptist church.  I sang in the choir, had crushes on the girls in church, played and socialized primarily with church people much of my life. I knew all the bible stories and had read enough verses over that time that I had it pretty much down. 

But I remember, things I heard from early in my church life not making sense to me.  When I asked my parents, they tried to explain why those things were as stated in the bible and Baptist dogma, or even to tell me that I had to have faith and just believe them.  But I was told in school about the scientific advances that resulted from questioning and looking at different possibilities to make break thru and wondered why the same rationale did not apply to religion.  I didn’t understand why babies in Africa had to go to hell, why other religions were wrong, or why Jesus would allow hell to exist if he truly loved us.  When I was around ten or eleven, I realized all my Sunday School mates had all gone down front to publicly profess their faith and “be saved”.  I wondered why I wasn’t and asked but could not get beyond the “you will know” or “a feeling of peace/grace will come over you” or other such platitudes.  I felt like an outsider in my family and my church and saw that I would be left behind if something did not happen.  I prayed, I tried to mentally get to a state that would feel special.  Do you know that feeling you can get when chills run down your spine, or your hair on your arms stand up, or you feel a sense of euphoria (OK, it could be like the feeling you get from sexual excitement, or hearing stirring music, or hearing something that creates that feeling)?  We had a church revival with some traveling preacher and I was standing with friends down front after some fun activity and during the invitation I was able to tap into the euphoria and convinced myself that this was the holy spirit, or Jesus or something that made it OK for me to say, “I’m saved” but in reality I was unchanged.  To my saved family and friends, I hope this does not bring you sadness about my soul being lost, but it is just the truth. Or as I told my sister when she shared her religious experience, “it just didn’t take.”

So from about 10 to 18 I sang songs, went to sermons (normally bored) listened to stories and went to Sunday school.  I parroted the right things back at the right times, but I never felt different nor even connected to the stories or the word.  In my high school years they would bring in things from other religions and basically use the opportunity to say, “these other religions are different and wrong, let’s laugh at their funny garments, practices or beliefs”.  The point was clear, “we are right, they are wrong. We are going to heaven, they are going to hell.”  It seemed kinda presumptuous to me and my brain immediately said, “but wouldn’t they think the same about us?”  I took a world history class from Ms Watts, where she talked about other major world religions like Muslims, Hindus and Buddists.  Their beliefs were even more different and strange, but for them as valid as ours.  They are all just different stories of how we got here and why we are here.  I was attracted to the Hindu belief of “many paths to the mountaintop” as accepting the validity of all faith, but then the knowledge of all the wars, persecution and suffering inflicted in the name of religion by all faiths was disappointing.  As I was learning about other would religious views I never felt a hunger or need for any of them, but I also never felt a need within myself to have religious views to be complete and happy.  But I didn’t want to insult my friends and family, so I kept my views to myself with those people.  They were, after all, my beliefs.

I also found that I enjoyed partying with friends, making fun of convention, laughing and chasing girls (mostly unsuccessfully).  I tried to be a good person and not hurt others and as I went to college I thought a lot about what it meant to be a good person.  Not by some label, religious faith, title or words I would speak, but by how I acted and felt about others.  I guess I am still on that journey of trying to be a better person and not be hurtful to others.  Sometimes I miss, and for that I am sorry.  And for my religious friends, I am not saying you are wrong, only that your beliefs are wrong for me.  I wish you well and for you to have peace for all your days.  That’s what I am working towards.