I joined the army…

Someday I want to figure out how we came to be a country where old people get warehoused until they die. I have been thinking about this over the years as I have navigated the care of my now 92 year old mother, but more recently, because of a comment made by a twelve year old girl in my class.

I made some off hand comment about having a senior moment that must have sounded disparaging to her. She raised her hand and stated emphatically that I should not make negative comments about being older. "In my culture, " she said proudly, " you are considered wise and worthy of respect."

That is not a belief that resounds throughout our American culture. But there is something else that is dawning on me. Singer/songwriter Marty Axelrod, in his song, " 26 or 27", looks into the heart of all of us who are aging, which I believe includes everyone on the planet. He reflects on how though we are all aging and aged, in our hearts we cry out,"I'm about twenty six or twenty seven." We have retirement homes across the nation filled with people in walkers and various ailments and topped with grey hair or none at all...but in their hearts, like in mine and like in yours, we are all at some younger age when our limbs were agile and our bodies as strong as our spirits and our dreams.

Sitting in those rockers and wheelchairs there are vast untapped resources that if unleashed could change every corner of the universe. There are artists and writers and thinkers and mathematicians with gifts that go unnoticed and unused. What is lacking is a means to mobilize their gifts.

In this world where creative minds have designed ways to gather world citizens for micro loans in struggling communities and ways for all of us to tap into each other's lives through social media, there ought to be a way for valuable elderly citizens of our society to contribute in meaningful ways towards making the world a better place. A wheelchair, feeble fingers, and brittle bones should not exclude any of us from feeling valuable and leaving a legacy of lives lived out for the common good. Perhaps this is hitting me so strongly today because recently, The Pilgrims, a singing group that does benefit concerts to bring attention to a ministry that helps kids living on the streets of Seattle, did a holiday concert for fun at a retirement home. I watched as the residents shuffled or wheeled themselves into the dining hall for the concert. I watched their faces as the years fell away and smiles engulfed their faces as this men's chorus began to sing holiday favorites. I watched and imagined the lives each had lived, the stories contained in their hearts, the gifts that would remain unopened as they waited for their life on this earth to end. One resident left during "Jingle Bells". As she slowly and painfully maneuvered her walker past me, her lips mouthed the words to the song and a beautiful smile crossed her face. She caught my eyes in a glance and did a little skip jump, her eyes glittering with sweet mischief. I heard the words of Marty's song in my head, " I am about 26 or 27..."

Someday, I will be retired. And I vow not to go gently into that good night. I vow to do all I can to be part of an army of silver haired warriors working to our last breaths to leave this world a better place than we found it. Ours was a generation that carried signs and marched in the streets and sang vigorously and passionately about the injustices of our times. And ours was a generation that watched in amazement as the world listened and walls of prejudice and inequality began to crumble. Let us now be the generation that leaves no gift unopened or unused. Let us be the generation that never stopped giving ourselves over to the work of healing the world. Let us be the generation who shines light and love and hope into every corner of a hurting world until our time on this earth is done. And then, and only then, let us be the generation that takes a well-deserved rest.

---

Marty Axelrod sings “26 or 27”

All my treasure will mean nothing….

Someday I hope to write about the achingly beautiful life we have been given and do it justice. Our lives are so chock full of rush and worry...and these same lives are lived out at break neck speed with a cosmic-sized to do list attached to our bended backs. Life passes by like a bullet train, and we stand at the platform waving at a disappearing shadow wondering why we have been left behind.

Or perhaps it is just me... But the train slowed down yesterday for me because of Athena, the small, frail Greek woman in her nineties who stopped my mom and I at the elevator at her senior apartments. She wondered if we would be around for a few moments because she needed two witnesses for her will. As we crossed the threshold of her apartment, I noticed a child-sized easel with some excellently drawn pieces and asked if she was an artist. A humble woman, she was difficult to draw out, but finally she showed me a picture of two beautiful hands reaching out towards a ball of light. "I had a vision,” she revealed. When I pressed her for details, she stated plainly, her voice nearly a whisper, "It was with all of my senses... And I knew I could die in peace."

Her son knocked at the door, and when we found out that the notary would not appear for about an hour, I plugged in my headphones and went for a walk at a nearby nature trail, thinking about being at peace with death. The lyrics to a tune Robin Mark recorded played in my head, accompanied by a haunting penny whistle..."when it all is said and done, all my treasures will be nothing; only what I did for love's reward will stand the test of time..."

A couple walked ahead of me with an unwieldy bike device. A small child tried to ride without success. Suddenly, her mom commandeered the bike and a laughing father and child pushed her awkwardly on the small vehicle. As the penny whistle played a score behind my steps, I began to unravel. A young father walked towards me, his face serene and filled with quiet pride. He pushed a stroller filled with a blanketed infant, too young to walk but not too young to smile. Her face was a mirror of her father's, and as they approached, I saw their lives pure and surrounded by promise. I came undone by the picture, and I could no longer hold back the flood of tears, my own joy and gratefulness overflowing out of these passing life pictures. We have been given this life- this beautiful, awkward, joy filled, painful, abundant life. It unfolds before us every day in these tiny moments of hope and possibility which get swallowed up or overshadowed by the other small things that really don't matter. But today, Athena spoke of a vision, and the day began to slow down. A family had a moment of spontaneous laughter. A father embraced a quiet winter walk with his daughter. And when I had returned for the signing, a fellow occupant of the senior apartment complex showed up in a furry bathrobe and curlers and announced she has worn her formal wear for the witnessing of the will. Suddenly, I was no longer necessary... they had one witness too many. But I was needed as a witness to this beautiful day as it unfolded and embedded itself into my heart. And like Athena, this day gave me a vision that someday I too will die at peace,

knowing a life filled with tiny moments of love and grace…

knowing all my treasures will mean nothing…

and knowing that only what I did for love's reward will stand the test of time.

The times, they are a changing….

Someday, I want to write about the soundtrack of our lives. You know what I am talking about. It's the music that plays in your head in those grand, sweet moments of life. It's the pluck and strum of your heart strings in a quiet moment of beauty. It's the musical score of your world.

I have been thinking about this today as I sit in the foyer of Evergreen Hospital listening to Judy play piano. Judy is a senior who contributes to the healing of the universe by playing a grand piano at this hospital as patients and family members go about their business. Because she knows that my husband and I are folk musicians, she has jettisoned her usual set list of classical pieces for folk music arranged for piano. The grand two story alcove pulls the notes skyward as a steady parade of people pass by.

Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing' " floats through the air, and as the lyrics swirl in my head, couples of every size, shape and color stroll past all carrying plastic, life- sized babies. The first couple who passed by signaled an appointment perhaps, a discussion of insights gained while toting a lifelike but plastic nonetheless baby. But soon this steady stream of couples and their dolls parading by make it apparent that this is an appointment of much greater design. Stretchy shirts are pulled over swollen bellies while husbands cling to lifeless dolls, all in preparation for this upcoming event.

They seem so serene, so quietly proud as they walk together, and I think to myself, “Yes, the times they ARE a-changing," in ways that these young couples cannot begin to fathom. Only we who have walked this road before can know the depth of what awaits them in the years to come. They will enter this brave new life blissfully ignorant and totally convinced that they are ready for what lies ahead.

But then, when are any of us ever ready for what lies ahead? If we could see through that dark glass dimly would we run to embrace the future or throw our hands up in despair? Would we dig into some well of courage deep within ourselves or shrink into our own insecurities and fears and never step into the challenges ahead?

Perhaps that is the beauty of the future being revealed in infinitesimally small steps, so as to protect us from our own weakness of spirit.

But through that dark glass, grand moments of beauty await us also in the small ordinariness of this life. Biking to work, I have passed a wetlands bathed in early morning light as a meadowlark warbled and my hearts' voice burst into song. " ..how great Thou art.. how great Thou art..." A brook warbles over rocks, and a symphony plays Copeland's" Appalachian Spring, and I have realized anew that it IS a gift to be simple. A grandchild's face explodes into a smile, and in the light of that gaze, the room and my aching heart are bathed in a chorus of alleluias. The soundtrack of the foyer swells and with it, the landscape of this ever changing canvas. A voice on the intercom announces a life threatening emergency. I see a wheelchair being pushed... an elderly man shuffles passed us, nurses, doctors...a visible river of humanity.

Someone is dying here today; someone is being born; someone is recovering and someone is losing hope.

My mind races with questions, the kinds of questions one wrestles with in the autumn of our lives. The kinds of questions that draw near to you when sitting in a hospital foyer watching life literally pass you by. Why am I here? What is my purpose? Have I overlooked some work I have been put here to do?

In the swirl of questions, I look over at sweet Judy. She is mouthing the words to the folk tune her hands create as the notes circle in the air. I can read her lips as Dylan speaks to the unspoken questions of my heart. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind...

the answer

is blowing in the wind.

1968. Fort Ord, California. The start of it all…