YOUNGER/OLDER

Upon admission to Brooke Army Medical Center last week several admitting personnel commented that I looked too young to be 82.  I assured them I was not lying about my age and offered my I. D. card. Two days later after numerous interviews, tests, and measurements I was discharged believing I was just getting old and wearing out although no one told me that in so many words.  I realized again that neither how people see me nor how medical professionals evaluate me should affect my self image.  I can only know how I am doing by going inside and checking out my life energy, my soul. This spirit/heart check is reliable and trustworthy. When I do this and feel the peace of God, I know all is well.  Eventually, my body condition will not matter. After I take "the last flight out" (My brother-in-law Chuck's expression), I expect to look back on my old form and be glad to leave it behind. For now they tell me I only had a TIA (tiny stroke) and need physical therapy to deal with balance and equilibrium and continue my treatments for back pain management and  ankylosing spondylosis.

I Gotta Be Me

My mother used to laugh and say I must have been the dumbest one or her five children because it took me the longest to get through school.  She may have been right. I went to seven schools after high school over a period of 27 years trying to learn how to serve God. I wanted to preach, teach, counsel, and write so I could help people live the way God surely wanted them to.  With all that effort I must have worn out my brain. I achieved what one doctor friend called "minimal cognitive impairment." Now I have trouble remembering words, thinking on my feet and speaking clearly. Now I have had to give up a lot of that doing and learn to be. This is my greatest challenge. Frank Sinatra crooned "I gotta be me" as if that was the easiest thing in the world. As the velveteen rabbit learned, to be real one has to know that he is loved by his owner and must be willing to be roughed up a bit. Trying to hop and jump like the "real" rabbits got him nowhere. He only learned to be real by crying a real tear.  Jumping through the hoops and filling squares does not make me real. Only by carrying my cross and going deep within my true self do I sometimes feel the reality I was created for.  And, surprise!! It is beginning to look like that will be where true spiritual energy, provided by the love of God, will have any influence on those I touch. By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that may be far more spiritually powerful and influential than all that previous effort.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TODAY I TURN 82! Already this week I have received from family and friends many beautiful messages, wishes, thoughts and prayers pointing to a very happy birthday.  These blessings enrich the decision I have already made that today will be happy and beyond happy to a joyful sense of being.
All I need to get this extra gift is a little space of peace and quiet. This helps me to know God at a deeper level of consciousness. Someone recently asked in print, "Name one truth that has helped you throughout your life?"  Easy. "God is love". That goes back almost 80 years ago when my mother taught it to me and showed it to me with her love.  At 82 that truth has become increasingly meaningful and helpful. The outside world makes a lot of noise and dissonance, but inside it is this truth that sets me free and makes me more than happy.