If you value people who are older—and also your own aging—these entries will help you rejoice in the fullness of this stage of life: its gritty realities, secret joys, hidden spirituality and cherished moments—reasons to be grateful that old age is always a gift from God!
The Advent lectionary sometimes includes Jesus’ comment about signs and wonders that will announce his Second Coming. (See Matthew 24 as an example.) Those omens will include natural disasters as well as human-caused catastrophes. These dark, foreboding omens signal world-ending events God’s people might expect. Today I offer a slightly contrarian view: That some of our contemporary signs andMORE...
I’ve always liked the idea of praying without ceasing. But this ideal can be different from the reality. Sometimes it can be difficult for me to maintain focus or direction. Thoughts don’t always come easily. That’s when I try to pray without getting stuck—to pray without seizing. An experience with one of my address books has helped me find a new way to explore this prayer practice. Recently IMORE...
While helping my ESL student compose his resume, I realized that my own is over 30 years old. That’s not a problem for future employment—I’m probably past that point in life. But that lack of current information might ripple into another area of my older adult life: Forgetting about many of the life experiences that have formed me. That train of thought got me wondering: Is it possibleMORE...
I’m often struck by the many elders who are curious, engaged and creative. They also inspire and motivate others around them to be generative—to discover and live out a viral vitality that keeps others’ pots boiling and energies percolating. There’s effervescence in their personalities—how they hold themselves, how they move, how they converse. Generativity—the ability to start somethingMORE...
Some things are better left unsaid. This is not one of them. In this entry I want to share my observations about older folks being dinosaurs. What got me started on this semi-rant was a recent experience: Hearing a competent, active and admired older leader wonder whether he had become a dinosaur in his chosen profession. I started asking myself the same question. My YES/NO answer: I may be likeMORE...
After two weeks of serving as an early voting election judge, I’ve come to realize what it means that each citizen is entitled to vote. Part of what I’ve imagined as true: Voters have a backstory that motivates them to cast their ballots. When taken together, those stories can have profound meanings. During these days, I’ve interacted briefly with voters as they entered the polling place. VotersMORE...
FROM: An older, unarmed man TO: Angry guys with guns Hello! Let me introduce myself: I’m an older guy, living in the upper Midwest. Retired and trying to make sense out of life. Maybe just like you, except that I don’t have any guns. Can we talk, man-to-man? I have tried to understand why you rely on your weapons so much and why you’re loud-angry. Most of what I hear from you justMORE...
A Reformation Day thought: We might carry the same passions as prophets or reformers in the past. Those Christ-following people noticed something that needed correcting. Perhaps it seemed small, but it was connected to larger matters. By calling attention to and resolving a perhaps-minor problem, these believers hoped eventually to affect wider change. They started simply, marshalling theirMORE...
This blog is part of a set of occasional entries that come from Chris’s and my service as election judges. Political thoughts, but NOT partisan…. You might have wondered about the people who are serving as election judges in the upcoming general election. These few observations…. Where we live, our County Clerk leads a governmental agency that’s exemplary in running efficient and honest electionsMORE...
After all these years, you’d think I know a lot. All my life experiences, all the training, all the reading and writing, all the interactions with people in the know—you’d think that would give me a leg up on this “knowing” thing. I’ve wished for some assurance about what’s true right now, but too many of the polls, algorithms, pundits and editorials aren’t reliable. There’s too much toMORE...
BOB SITZE has filled the many years of his lifework in diverse settings around the United States. His calling has included careers as a teacher/principal, church musician, writer/author, denominational executive staff member and meat worker. Bob lives in Wheaton, IL.