I heard the great philosopher, Dolly Parton, say regarding a family reunion she was enjoying in Pigeon Forge…at the foot of the Smokys…that she was not in the children’s group nor in the senior citizen category…but that her time was coming. She went on about how the children look up to the elders among them and look toward them for wisdom and history and a sense of place…and that the transition from one group to the next happens almost imperceptibly. For many years we are the breadwinners and the homemakers and the host of events and cookouts and holidays…and then we are slowly the ones being helped to the table. The storytellers and the gray heads and hoary beards among the group. No mountain was too tall for us to climb and no valley was too steep for us to explore. We have the distinct privilege and high honor of seeing the babies in our midst become wonderful and caring adults and their children…do the same.

We are traveling on what seems to be a slow coal-fired locomotive that is leisurely ‘clickety-clacking’ down the track of life…when in reality we are on the Eurorail and the scene is whisking by our windows so rapidly that it gives us a headache to look at it. On the Stage of Life…Shakespeare told us to ‘Play our part well…’

If we had the luxury of sitting down at the Orpheum Theatre in Eldorado and watching a film of our lives…they would make so much more sense than they do at the moment…sometimes. We would see the danger that was lurking just around the corner that we did not take. We would hear the laughter of our grown children and grandchildren as they sat securely in their own skin…and enjoyed the person that they were.

Fear and doubt and imaginations…stalk our lives at times…but the result of most trepidation and worry is merely shadows and not reality. Life brings joy and peace and love…and forgiveness…if we give it a chance…