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!
(Today, my caution about a word sometimes used to describe older adults who are having more than a little trouble figuring things out.) In some lexicons, individuals—some of them older adults—can be described as addled, usually taken to mean something like dazed, confused, befuddled, disorganized or worse. (Intoxicated is listed as another synonym.) Like other words sometimes attached toMORE...
Has this happened to you? Someone you know takes a sudden turn for the worse, and in less time than you’d like, their health, safety or financial well-being deteriorates drastically or their life comes to an end. That’s happened to some folks at our church recently, and it always brings me up short. Without warning, they’re cut off from their usual routines or relationships. (Here I think ofMORE...
(For the past several weeks, I’ve been living with a sense of foreboding about what’s ahead. I want to thin this emotional bile that’s eating at my soul. Today some older adult assurances about long-haul thinking….) The newly arrived gaggle of angry, self-centered and self-righteous political appointees is making statements and taking actions that will clearly harm the public good. Given theMORE...
(Just this once, I’m going to relent and use this entry’s word count to spotlight a few of the hundreds of astonishing ideas that Jonathan Haidt offered in The Anxious Generation. And if you look closely enough, you’ll see some light, some hope!) “These two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 becameMORE...
(Today’s entry contains some of my reflections after reading a startling book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Yes, the title caught my attention, too, for good reasons….) “Our technologies may be harming us more than we admit.” Over the past few years, that idea has attached itself to smartphones and social media, sometimesMORE...
(Just in case you missed it: After six years’ work, Luke Durant, a San Jose, CA researcher, discovered and verified last fall a new prime number that consists of 41,024,320 digits! There probably are theological connections….) If you’re already fascinated with the intricacies of higher mathematics, you know that prime numbers are those divisible only by 1 and themselves. (Hence 2,3,5,7, 11, 13MORE...
(Recently I explained my decision to regard the current political maelstrom as a distraction that could harm my responsibility to maintain a discerning spirit. Today a further peek into the reasons behind those thoughts.) When I wrote about stepping around the distractions that could impair my God-given abilities to determine how best to live purposefully right now, I was thinking about my GodMORE...
(I’ve noticed that much of what I have seen and heard beyond this computer screen is encased in numerical certainty, realities surrounded and proven by numerals. Not wanting these later years of my life to go unnoticed, I have resolved to verify my worth with numbers. I anticipate this to be a noble effort….) One perhaps disappointing element about some older adults’ past-professional days areMORE...
(Artificial Intelligence has been inserted into many facets of our daily lives, so it makes sense to stay current with thought leaders in this field. The following paragraphs contain some of my takeaways from a recent reading of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, by Wharton management professor Ethan Mollick.) Mollick’s basic premise is straightforward: Given the rapid ascendancy ofMORE...
(Continuing the general direction of hopeful and tangible ways each of us can continue to be Gospel in these times, this thought: We can embody the best and most hopeful elements of what’s good and godly. Today, exemplifying truth.) You and I could fill our daily conversations with fulminations about the overwhelming presence of falsehood in today’s society. (Short version: It’s everywhereMORE...
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.