Norman Vincent Peale wrote the extremely popular book The Power Of Positive Thinking. There is something to be said for not letting your age illness or station in life dominate you and become your identity. I was reading an article in the Washington Post recently that said many people are guilty of Ageism against themselves. They accept what the media and popular culture tell them as to the restrictions of their age and the diminishment of their powers. The speech of the senior citizen betrays their bias. They often refer to themselves as old or of lowered mental acuity and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My late father-in-law was an active retiree. He lived well into his 80s. I thought the other day that I am a bit like Berl in that I go to the woods every day to take photographs and walk while he went to the creek every day to fish for hours. All throughout the spring summer and fall Berl could be found on the creek bank happily and actively pulling in fish after fish. Once he turned 80 he arbitrarily decided that he was now too old for such rigorous activity and subsequently quit cold turkey. Berl put out an award-winning garden each spring. He had been a farmer and he knew how to grow vegetables. Again at 80, he decided that he was too old to do so any longer. In just a year or two he felt that he was not up to a car ride of 15 miles to see his daughter and grandsons. It is easy to submit to entropy.

It seems to me that our Pandemic has changed us all and not always for the better. We isolated ourselves to prevent catching Covid and we declined some during the isolation. I saw my friend Neal at Aldis a couple of days ago and I once again was amazed at his strength and keen mind and he is well into his 90s. In fact, my fellow congregants at First Presbyterian are by and large seniors, and some are much older than I am. I have been blown away by the activity and the workmanlike attitude of my friends in the church. Once I was bemoaning having to work at the church until I saw Clark who was another member in his 90s slowly going to the trunk of his car and retrieving a toolbox to do some work on the Sanctuary.

If you want to write then write. Just the desire to do it illustrates that you are capable of it. Or as the Bible says, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’ Ecclesiastes 9:10