Oh, Hello, it’s you,
You seem so familiar,
We’re soulmates you know.
The paths we’ve taken,
In spite of the twists and turns,
Have converged tonight.
Our pasts were the same,
Even though they were apart,
Now we're joined as one.
The game is over,
There’s no need to look further,
We’ve found each other.
Our bodies have been changing from the moment of conception. Every character line and scar are testaments to a life well lived. Resisting those changes only detracts from embracing the inevitable transition to our earned elder status in our circle of influence.
Growing old gracefully is the best response to the inevitable passage of relentless time.
I recently happened upon some parting thoughts by Donna Ashworth whom I do not know, but I related to many of her observations on a life well lived and it prompted me to consider a few of my own:
We are born three times: the day of our first breath, the day we figure out why we were born and the day our spirit is homeward bound on our last breath.
Growing old gracefully is the best revenge. We know it’s inevitable so why try to live against the wind? Everyone dies, but not everyone lives to the fullest. Embrace life as the adventure that awaits us with every day’s challenges and joys. Wouldn’t the world be so much brighter if we took the time to see a person’s soul and not their outward appearance?
Don’t burn daylight being concerned about other people’s opinion of you because they are quite probably more self-centered and less confident--and it was never about you anyway. If you can’t be kind, learn to be quiet.
Only one man ever walked this planet in perfection. He spent three years of intense teaching to show us how to live to strive for such an unreachable goal and left us with the beautiful concept of grace. If someone cuts you off in traffic, let them go and cool your jets. You never know what they are dealing with at the time and it’s probably best not to get in the middle of it.
Chasing happiness is elusive, as its reward is obtained from external stimuli like buying stuff and the effect wears off the second the price tags are removed. But joy can be found internally, without the need for things of this world.
Many folks only see and comment on what others do wrong. Surprise people by catching them doing something right and acknowledging it! A simple handwritten “Thank You” note works wonders because so few people do it.
Just about anything we do in excess as we traverse this life is damaging. Anything in moderation is preferable. Replace stress and worry with joy and peace. Many things in life are out of our control except one thing—our response. Leave the rest to our Heavenly Father and try again in the morning.
We’re a curious human species. We see in life what we look for in life. If we look for negatives, we’ll find them and the same is true for positives. A headline reading “dog bites man” won’t get our attention, but “man bites dog” will always do the trick. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a mantra that has stood the test of time.
Always drink the good wine and use the good dishes. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. Live a life that plans for the future, learns from the past, and fully embraces the present, for that is all we’re guaranteed and where life is played out. Try to leave your sphere of influence a little better than you found it and encourage others to help heal the brokenness. One simple act of kindness trumps a thousand platitudes.
“The
wind gives our children the spirit of life.”—Chief Seattle
They
say that God is in the wind and as a boy growing up in the windy mid-western
Kansas plains I came to instinctively sense this. I was keenly aware of this
especially as I hunted the prairie grasses for wild quail and prairie chickens
while the ubiquitous winds carried them away ahead of me. The native Kansa Indians were known as “the
people of the south wind”. Jesus
mentioned in John 3:8 (just before the well-known John 3:16 verse) that “God’s
Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but
you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.” God made his presence
known at Pentecost via a violent wind, fire, and his Holy Spirit. However, when Elijah needed a message in 1
Kings 19 there was a great wind, an earthquake and finally a fire, but God was
not in any of these. Then God’s message
came in a gentle whisper. It’s up to us
to be aware and many times to retreat from the chaos and noise of the world
around us and simply listen humbly and quietly to the silence born on gentle
breezes.
God has communicated to humankind over the centuries
verbally, with angels, in dreams, and through His Son. Since the time of that
revelation of himself over 2,000 years ago, he is more to be felt than
seen. I’ve been fascinated by Native
Americans because I believe they lived a harsh but harmonious life out in God’s
creation every day of their lives. They were convinced of the existence of a
Great Spirit and the sacredness of the earth. They viewed winds as the
personification of a divine messenger and an autonomous living force. They observed the path of the winds to be
this divine being sweeping through the land.
And they considered this being to be a counselor, a term that also
defines the role of the Holy Spirit. The
Navajo, Apache and Hopi use a diamond shape to symbolize the powerful four-fold
nature of the four winds: freedom, eternity, unity and balance.
It’s interesting to note that both the Hebrew and Greek words
for wind, breath and spirit are the same. God breathed life into the first
human beings. The air around us has been described as the kingdom of the
heavens. We certainly can’t survive without it. Is it merely composed of
natural elements like oxygen and carbon dioxide, or is there something more
transparent and spiritual at work in this rarefied air?
When we’re out in God’s creation and enjoying the experience
of the life he has given to us, we can begin to feel his presence. I believe
God is in these winds more so than anything else in his created universe. And
these caressing breezes provide a closeness for some of the most sublime
moments in our life as a child of God.
In
the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, the prophet had a vision of God leading him
to a valley of dry human bones. The dry bones represented the hopelessly and
spiritually dead condition of the people who were living against the wind. And God told Ezekiel to prophesy that the
breath of the four winds would come and breathe into those slain, that they
might live. And life was restored as the bones rose up and lived again! Once
God breathes His spirit back into a people, they will have new life!
