THE BIBLE: OUR COMPASS

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”  (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT)

The future belongs to the young and so it is they in particular who must face this urgent question:  Ought we not to take more seriously again the familiar system of values which can help us determine what to do?  I am not suggesting a nostalgic retreat into the past; but perhaps we should chart our future course with the help of a certain compass, which may not have outlived its usefulness after all.  A compass which -- after many other instruments have proved to have given only unreliable bearings in the tempests of modern times -- could perhaps point us a course toward a future of greater human dignity.  A compass that might reorientate us with essential Christian values once more, and in a new way, in an era whose values have been so impoverished.

-- Hans Kung in “Why I Am Still A Christian”


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FRAMED BY LARGE PERSPECTIVES

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.”  (Psalm 34:18)

“Religion is for old people,” my buddy declared as we drove through the countryside. I found his comment a little insulting: I was a church goer, age nineteen. Was that so wrong? I lost touch with him; now it’s been twenty-five years since we’ve spoken. But he was on to something. At twenty, the road looks clear all the way. We arrogantly waste time, try a hundred new jobs or relationships or ideologies, believe any fool thing. The heart is not yet broken, not in the way it is when time crashes down on it -- soured dreams, career missteps, divorce, illness, the death of loved ones, the passing of so much we love. By old age the ghostly procession of the once-was can be unbearable.

My heroes include any elderly persons who keep the flame lit, who still feel inspiration aand outrage at ideas, current events, history, movies, books, national tragedies, spring flowers, the passing parade. Somehow they take it all in. Life enlarges their spirit, becomes fuel for the remaining journey, seasoned with humor, not bitterness. They age with dignity. Part of the dignity is keeping the inevitable heartbreak framed by large perspectives and by going deeper into the grief, not denying it.

-- Ray Waddle in “A Turbulent Peace”


#4068

EMBRACING THE PRESENT

We should not "borrow from the future" by living in fear of the next life stage. Neither should we live in the past by "idolizing" the life stage just completed. Live fully in the present. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Look for God there. However, in order to fully embrace the present, we must regularly let go of the past, and one of the most significant losses that we must periodically let go of is the loss of our youth.

-- R. Scott Sullender in Losses in Later Life


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