One day, we'll all slow down, age, losing our memories, our hair turning white, our strength dissipating, maybe even get impoverished, wondering if we matter at all to the stronger ones.
That's how I keep things in perspective about aging.
We'll all get there.
Just a matter of time.
Sure, we still have a few more mileage to our years, but what of the much older people?
Do we know the many gifts they bring?
Do we have the patience to elicit, or help them remember the gifts they have for us?
I'm not talking about wills and stuff.
I'm talking about the wisdom, and experience, they have.
That's the real WEALTH.
They have lived far longer than we have.
Do you ever wonder what they can teach us?
I've always been a curious child, and I always love listening to older people.
It's all about joy, and respect.
Joy, at what you can learn from them.
Respect, for they have much to teach us.
Have we made time to honor these precious folks?
Do we make time, at all?
Do we sit at their feet, and encourage them to tell us about their lives?
Do we listen, with rapt attention, as they tell us stories (even tall stories) of their many adventures, from times past?
I do know of the love between grandparents, and grandchildren.
I hope we allow that a lot, for one keeps the other young; the other helps the other grow up.
I think, older people are the most interesting people on earth!
Older people are living, breathing, depositories of "history".
They've been where we never have been.
They may have lived through the wars, or many conflicts we know nothing about.
How have they managed to survive?
What would they like to teach us?
They'd make wonderful, non-academic professors, for one.
They can teach us much about life, love, work, even God.
Now that they're older, slower (maybe), less active (maybe), won't we make time to listen to them, too?
Will we allow their precious lives to waste away, with no one having cared or listened to them?
Just as we care about orphans, the sick, the disabled, the homeless, the starving, the widows, the disenfranchised in our societies, perhaps we can make time for our older kin, too.
Of course, I was shocked some homes for the aged allowed the elderly to die on their own from this covid crisis.
Can you imagine that?
Letting a person die, a person who cannot help themselves, and just letting them starve, and go that way?
We cannot abandon each other that way.
There's a little joke about how we all age.
That we all look like babies once more -- bald, and toothless -- and yes, helpless.
I honestly believe in my heart they have much to teach us.
We can all live longer lives if we are useful, if we have something to live for.
Each of us, young or old, has a gift to give the world.
Won't we take it upon our hearts, to help older people remember?
And if they can't remember, we can't force it.
But we can be there for them, making sure they are treated well, and cared for, with respect.
We all deserve to live, and age, in dignity.
Are older people to be set aside, once their "usefulness" is over?
Who "dictates" such usefulness?
May society never forget the usefulness of each person.
There's that untainted, uncorrupted part of our hearts that aims to love.
Being a researcher on self and God, and a natural care giver, I know that there's a "light" in every person, waiting to be "uncovered".
Ideally, that light would be revealed by that person himself.
But what if, he couldn't, or wouldn't?
Would someone, in any part of the world, or community, or family, care to take take that bushel out, so the "light" may be revealed?
15 Neither do men light a candle,
and put it under a bushel,
but on a candlestick;
and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:15-16
King James Version
Let us honor the God in each other.
God created us all.
God must live in each one of us.
Let us remember the forgotten people in our household, our communities, our countries, our world.
Every human being has a purpose, and a value.
We are all precious in the eyes of the LORD.
3 The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying,
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
Jeremiah 31:3
King James Version
More verses on how we are all precious to God.
Updated 24 January 2022
