Eighty-Two and Counting

Today, May 8, I turned 82. What does that mean? It is another marker of getting older which I have been doing for a long time. In some ways it is nothing-almost. But from another viewpoint, it is a stage of life beyond which fewer than 50% of a population achieve.

It is trite to say that you are only as old as you feel. Perhaps it is the slight validity of that saying that keeps it alive. But then, how does one know how one should feel at any time? Perhaps it’s your attitude that really spells out your age. How well do you feel about where you are? That’s the issue.

So, how do I feel? Pretty good for being 82, I suppose. Yet I do have a perpetual feeling of tiredness, which soon gets even worse when I work even part of an hour. Several hours of work give me a good excuse for lying down for a while. I suppose this easy tiring is my chief indication that I am more than 70 years old, if I can compare it to that age. Then there is also my vision. Even though a recent eye exam rated me at very nearly 20/20, I still feel that my vision is somewhat frustrated. It is not blurry, but perhaps my peripheral vison is a bit weaker. Anyway, I can still drive without glasses, but reading is difficult even without good lighting or large bold print. So I suppose I feel normal for being 82.

Then there is the psychology of my age; I have less motivation to do much. Reading is fine, and writing is easy if I have something to write, like this analysis of my aging. But do I have something to look forward to that I want to hang around a long time? My family down to the third generation greatly intrigues me. Those 13 great-grands, I sure would like to see them in their teen years; and more to come. I don't expect to see a generation after that- I would likely have to be a hundred years old. I would like to live until most of my family would feel I have lived long enough for a good life!

Should I have any hopes for a certain number of years yet? My days are not mine to choose. Statistics are not too helpful in justifying any prediction. I can hope to have from 2-15 years yet, and let God choose how many. Yet I do pray for a good many years, and good years, without a lingering deteriorating life. My in-laws went from old age normal to their transition in only about 6 months for both of them. That would be as good as you can hope for.

I suppose most of the above leads to a preoccupation with the ending of this life. I have written a simile that I imagine it is like walking along the side of a mountain on a cliff, which seems to get narrower at times and you know that at some time it will be too narrow to proceed, but there is no turning back. . Then you will drop off, and that anticipation is what is scary. Yet as you fall, you know you are descending into a beautiful, heavenly lush valley, where your loved ones are waiting to greet you, and will escort you to meet the King to whom you will be grateful for having led you all your life, even loving you since you were a child- or before. The rest will be timeless, no more counting years or time but floating through eternity, endlessly.

                                SEVENTY THINGS I STILL WONDER ABOUT

“For we know in part…I thought like a child…we see a poor reflection…” I Corinth. 13

1. How evolutionists can still hold to their out dated theory in the light of continually discovered complexities of life processes and components, e.g. DNA.

2. How Christians can go to war, potentially killing each other, or certainly people who have not yet heard the Gospel.

3. How rich Christians can live on a standard many times that of 2 billion of the world’s people, most who have not yet heard the Gospel either.

4. How abortionists can believe that the fetus is not sacred human life.

5. How Belizeans and perhaps other people can live in poverty without seeming to worry about their next day’s needs, and keep having babies in that situation. “Take no thought” seems to be what some remember most from the Gospels.

6. How anybody could know the love of God and not respond positively to it.

7. Whether all marriages could be saved.

8. Whether hell is really forever for those who have not heard of Christ, and will those people have some other chance after this life.

9. Whether Tim LaHaye of Left Behind fame is right about his scheme that Jesus will come twice, or three times; and whether Jesus will reign on earth while evil men are still around.

10. Whether I will live to be an old man like some of my ancestors, or go younger like the others.

11. If energy and mass in the universe are interchangeable and constant in totality as science projects, then how much energy did God exert to create the universe?

12. What is culture and what is personality when people do things strange to your way of thinking. like when Belizeans chop down your beautiful plants just so they can see sand in your lawn, or a pastor signs a contract to make payments on a car, but never does even when he can.

13. What heaven is really like.

14. How God decides who should be in heaven and who should go to the other place.

15. Whether born again Republicans or any other Christians will ever learn to love the poor as much as themselves as Jesus taught to love your neighbor as your self.

16. Whether Jesus will return in this century or the next, or when?

17. Are there any marriages in which the two partners are completely satisfied with each other?

18. What would my sister Rhoda have been like, had she lived?

19. What would life be like for the remaining one when one of us dies?

20. What would my life have been like if I had been loved as much as I wanted to be from the day of my birth until this day? And would that have been good for me? Would my ministry have been better, and I a better person?

21. I still wonder why the opposite sex has to be so opposite. Couldn’t God have made sexuality a bit easier without it becoming boring?

22. Is there an end to space, or an end to the universe?

23. How did God become?

24. Was this the first world with people on it?

25. Are there other kinds of living beings not needing an atmosphere, or temperatures between freezing and boiling, perhaps black matter beings or gaseous beings with spirits and consciousness with whom God relates as he is also Spirit?

26. What was God doing before the creation of our universe? Inventing other physical/spiritual systems and relating to them? And did any other system fail morally like man in God’s plan?

27. Did it take any length of time as we measure time, for God to design DNA and other incredibly complex matters of “intelligent design”? Did he have it all figured out when he started?

28. Of course we are glad we are not moral robots, but does God ever have second thoughts about making man with free choice, and not wishing he had slanted man’s inclinations a bit more toward his ways?

29. What kind of feelings does God have about the condition of the world, both the present world, or at any other time in history? Does he go by his feelings to decide when to end it all for our planet? Is he now more nearly fed up than any time since the flood? Will he end it when enough good has happened, or when too much bad stuff is going on, or when ever?

30. How can God be so patient with his children, and still not be indifferent to their sin?

Especially the sins of materialism, militarism, and indifference to the poor and sinners?

31. How can God tolerate all the suffering of the innocents in the world: children, widows, orphans, the impoverished, war victims, et.al?

P.44 THINGS I STLL WONDER ABOUT

32. Why is God so slow in meting out justice to the oppressors and their victims?

33. Can God accept those as his children who do not walk in the peaceful way of Christ?

34. Should the Bible be considered a holy book, like a sacred object? Don’t Fundamentalists give credit to the book that belongs only to the main character of the Book, making the book an idol?

35. Is homosexuality genetic, or from one’s environment, or from circumstances? Is the origin and basis the same for all people? Are there degrees of fixation of orientation, from slight attraction, to exclusive attraction to the same gender?

36. Paul to the Romans seems to feel homosexual behavior is a kind of abandonment of God toward those who turn inexcusably from him. “He gave them over to…” Is homosexuality thus justifiably a point of focus for the church above other kinds of sexual sins, or just a present day point of controversy?

37. I still wonder how high the pile would be, if all the things that were stolen from us in Belize would be divinely reassembled on our living room floor!

38. I further wonder how many people have built a wall between us and them by thievery, isolating and insulating themselves from the Gospel we would want to share with them.

39. Is there any way we can protect our goods without being paranoia, having a big dog, or hiring a full time watchman? Even bank security fails at times.

40. What will be my Achilles’ heal, or fatal weakness, or will I just hold together until one day, like the Deacon’s One Horse shay, everything breaks down at one point in time.

41. How I can tell if an ache or pain is the beginning of something, or just a little more wear on this aging body.

42. If we were made in God’s image, then in how many ways are we like God our Father?

43. Am I as old fashioned and removed from the reality of youth as we used to think our parents and grand parents were when we were young?

44. Can a person live off the intimacy with God when intimacy with someone is lacking, or does intimacy have to be with someone in human skin?

45. Is it all right to think that Jesus may have been wrong in thinking that he would return to earth in the same generation that some of those lived who were hearing him speak?

46. Was Jesus thinking of situations like Belize when he said we should give to anyone who asks of us what we have? What of those willingly submitting to dependency in hard economies?

47. Will I always get tired easily the rest of my life?

48. How would I know if I am no longer as wise as I think I am?

49. I wonder how strongly and sincerely Dad believed in the Amish Ordnung as the best interpretation of Scripture and way of the Christian life, especially when I was a teen in the mid 50’s, or was he just pragmatic, seeking to maintain peace in the church and with churches?

50. I wonder if Dad was a weaker leader partly because he was ambivalent in the above years on rules and regulations.

51. I wonder if personal computers really enhance the quality of life for most people who have them, or are they mostly an electronic toy.

52. If they can make a computer that does a million things for under $400.00, why can’t they make one that lasts a week without malfunctioning? Why do programs stop responding?

53. I still wonder how we can basically affirm any culture over all as they all are practically deifications of fallen man’s values.

54. Does God laugh or cry at the foolishness of man, those who deny his existence, his creating the world, who think they may destroy human life that was created sacred by Him?

55. Is God satisfied with my life in any degree, or is he still longing for some break through to my dull mind and spirit? What mid term grade would I have received from him?

56. I still wonder why it is that I hesitate, even delay a day or two, to tell Loretta bad news like thievery and big bills, or missing money, but she feels compelled to tell me frequently about mold, roaches, and every knife she loses as well as every other little fault of our house.

57. I still wonder why I don’t have credibility; why people ask me how I know what I say and where I heard it; and why what I say is not very convincing to many. (Also in Burdens)

58. Why does Jesus say in one chapter that we should let our lights shine so people will see our good deeds (Mt 5:16) and in the next chapter (6:1) say we should not do our good deeds to be seen by men? May some in Belize think we are nearly irrelevant and dispensable because we of Amish background hide our good deeds so well that they have little idea how much we are doing?

59. I still wonder when we will ever move back to the States and retire. See Appendix D

60. I still wonder how nationals can be made to feel comfortable with missionaries when we are so much more educated and experienced then they are.

61. I wonder how many of our Belizean children will grow up as Christians and be faithful in the church and have beautiful families and good jobs.

62. I wonder if God may just work through our prayers what we just can’t seem to get a handle on, like leading persons into the kingdom.

63. I still wonder what the limits are of our marriage to meet each other’s needs.

64. Like Billy Graham said on a TV interview, I also wonder if I will ever hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

65. Why it seems to us that the needs of persons around us seem so obviously desperate to us but others can know about them and be totally unmoved to any action and practically ignore them; e.g. the delay in establishing a home for youth.

66. The Creation: How many years B.C. was Genesis 1:1? Is the Biblical record literal, poetic, or didactic? Were the 6 days literal, or a story telling scheme of the oral tradition? Did it matter to the Hebrews?

66a. If we are made in the image of God, and have a sense of humor, God must also have a sense of humor. But what would God find most amusing? Us, his children?

67. In spite of the statement of the founding fathers that all men are created equal, I wonder if that is really the case by races. Of course it is politically incorrect to even ask the question. Most African groups, perhaps almost all, have not broadly developed the arts, science, education, literature, theology, honesty, political structures that work most of the time, and some moral values and integrity that mark most European groups. (Probably honesty, truthfulness, forgiveness, generosity and fidelity are less common for Africans that Europeans in general.) I wonder, were all actually “created equal” but some cultures and races not affected by Christianity as much? Aren’t slavery and colonialism just excuses for lack of maturity like western societies and with the weakness of family structure? Is black sensuousness genetic (racial) or moral? Are we really all equal?

68. How do you convince young women to stop having new babies when they already have 3-5 and struggle daily in begging something for them to eat? Is it right to send away such a mother with a new born who comes to your door when you have warned them various times before?

69. I still wonder whether she and I should try to resolve our seemingly irreconcilable difference on the liquidation of our assets in ministry, or whether I should just manage the way I am convinced we should do it; and whether we should consider not supporting families with small children in this matter before we find alternative support for them.

70. I wonder if many of the above issues will be resolved in our life time, or if I will just keep on wondering. Most will not be worth asking God about when I will have a chance, I am sure.

Finished Sept 12, 2006