Transcript

I'm kind of bedraggled. I thought I could beat the last shower, but I didn't make it. This time wearing was given by one of the Korean students, and the box had something on it in Korean, so I got one of the Korean students to translate it for me and said, do not wear in the rain. Can't wear them all. Well, it's a pleasure to see you, and I want to thank those who participated today in what has been a full, busy, informing day. We've had a lot of information, good information, important information, that I hope will be assimilated by the ministers and the leadership of the church in ministering to the aging. It was very good for me. It's more than I can assimilate, but I'll have to work on it and listen to the tapes. But we appreciate it. Our speakers are gone now, except Dr. Hill. He's still here. I've tried to get him to leave, but he's still here. We do appreciate it very much. I thought we might, however, close the day by turning the subject matter just a bit, not just a bit, 180 degrees. We have been today thinking of ourselves as caregivers as ministers to aging people. I would like for us to think just a few moments as a benediction on our day, think about the aging people as ministers to us. I don't mean this in any functional sense in terms of local church programming, although that is important, and I am always pleased to visit a church which has elderly people and retired persons involved in the life of the church, in teaching, in working with the children, calling, visiting in homes, doing all kinds of work, office work, volunteers of all kinds. I know one church in which the bedridden members, those that are really confined, are given every Monday morning a list of persons for whom to pray, and they pray for them by name every day. They can't call, they can't go, they can't give, they can't do, but they are really doing because they're given the prayer list and they pray. I know of people in retirement homes that are almost on the staff of the church who go up and down the hall and visit with others and spread the gospel of Christ, and that is wonderful. I'm not going to talk about that. I want to talk about something much more modest, and that is the aging people in the church as the memory bank of the church, on which the church can and should our hope will repeatedly draw, write checks on that bank and draw upon that memory. Aging people have, among other things, at least two sources of real energy and vitality in life. One is anticipation, something to look forward to, something which can be provided by us. I try to get my students to understand. When you call on those who are confined or in retirement centers or confined to home, don't just show up. Send a note or make a call, like on Tuesday morning, and say, may I visit with you Friday afternoon at three? That way they have something to anticipate from Tuesday to Friday. Instead of you're just showing up, and then when you're gone, having them say, I wish I'd thought of this. I wanted to say that if I'd have thought of that. Besides that, they can brag to the other people they know. My minister's coming Friday afternoon. They can prepare for it. They can anticipate it, and it also indicates that you have invested a great deal of intentionality in giving to them. Just a little something to anticipate. I know some people say, but what if something happens, and I can be there Friday afternoon? Listen, anticipation is tough. It's handled bigger disappointments than that. With some of us, showing up might be a disappointment, so don't worry about it. That's very important, but the other is memory as an enormous source of pleasure. You see all those photographs on the upright piano, and on the mantel, and everywhere, and every one of them, a story and a thousand stories triggered just for the picture, and clippings, and all kinds of things, just living out of that memory. Of course, they're sad memories. They're painful memories, but by the providence of God for some reason. They painful things are forgotten much more quickly than the pleasant ones. We forget the splinters on the old oaken bucket. We just remember how good the water was. That's just the providence of God. Source of sanity. When everything else is disoriented, the memory of things that were, whether they are remembered exactly or not, is unimportant. It is a source of sanity, a source of identity. The one person who cannot answer the question, who am I, is the amnesiac. I don't know. Memory. Now, I'm not going to idealize this. I'm not going to idealize old age. I know in parts of the Bible age is representative of wisdom and stability and lasting consistency. The aged person is much revered in the culture of the Bible, and in that part of the world to this day. I know God is pictured as having white hair, a picture of just having been here a long time, stability and staying with it and wise. The shepherd of Hermas pictures the church as an old, old, old woman. Not an ugly picture, but the very symbol of wisdom and endurance and persistence. But the Bible also pictures old age, the other side as well. Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh. And you say, I have no pleasure in them, and the sun and the moon and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain, and the silver cord is broken, and the picture is dashed at the cistern, and the wheel is broken at the well, and the doors on the street are shut, and the daughters of song are brought low, and the grinders cease because they're few. That's old age. The Bible is realistic. I'm not wanting to idealize something here, but on the other hand, I certainly would not idealize young and new either. There is a man in the North Georgia mountains who is the oldest man in the world. I visited him several times. He's been sad lately. His wife has died. He's the only person I know that was there at Genesis 1 -1. And I go to talk to him about what was it like when everybody was young, and everything was new, and nothing was aging. It was all just brand spanking new. He said it was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. You should have been there, he said. It snowed in July, and God said, snow? Uh-uh, uh-uh, wintertime. The snow said, well, it rains in July. Well, but that's different. And they got into it. You're just a big squabble all the time. Turtles trying to climb trees. Fish trying to walk. Robin laying eggs out on a bare limb, and God said, build a nest first. Give me a little slack here. I never did this before. It was all just a big mess, confusing and quarreling. God making creatures, God didn't tell. For some reason, God must have slipped up and didn't say the night before. God always said the night before, what I'm making tomorrow. But never mention, tomorrow the rhinoceros. Well, here's the rhinoceros, just scared everything to death. Grape vines, grab the trees. And if you look at grape vines today, that's the reason for it. They're still hanging on the trees. He explained all that to me. See, I didn't understand that. He said, in the beginning, when everything was new, there was a lot of bickering. For instance, the moon was very upset that in the summertime, the sun gets to stay up later. And it was a big quarrel. There were, in the beginning, only two seasons, winter and summer, real cold, real hot. And they complained, we never get to see each other, never get to play together. And God said, all right, we'll have two winter and summer. And then I'll have two seasons when you play together. They'll be kind of cold and kind of warm, spring and fall. That was nice. But it grew out of an argument and bickering. And the old man said, you should be glad you weren't here. When everything was young and new, it was a problem. I certainly don't idealize that. I know that memory has a lot of problems in it. It leaks, it twists, it gets it confused. But I don't know of anything more tragic, no greater loss for a community, for a church, or for a family, not to mention the person involved. I can't think of a greater loss, perhaps as great as death itself, the total loss of memory. Just picture it. A daughter comes into the room to, mother, we've come to visit you. Yes, and who are you? This is Nancy. This is Nancy, mother. And here are your grandchildren. Oh, really? What are their names? This is Mary, and this is Kenny. Whose children are they? They're mine, mother. And who are you? Just think of the wealth of the treasure that's just locked by hardened arteries or stroke or Alzheimer's or something. Locked, never to be opened again. All those treasures of years and years of love and laughter and crying and being together, gone. Just lock the box. And it'll make you appreciate the memory. However much it may turn and twist and slip in league. Because life's understanding, the real, rich understanding of life, is in memory. Most of us don't understand things that happen at the time they happen. It's that way on a trip. If you're taking a trip, you don't know where you are or what you're seeing, usually, because there are the tickets and the passport and the luggage, and don't drink the water and gotta get some film and tell them to hold the bus and whatever happened to Susan and all of that. And it's a big mess. And if you didn't take pictures, you wouldn't know whether you were there or not. Is this Belgium or where is it? But you take the trip when the film is developed. When the slides come back, you take the trip. Life is that way. I was baptized when I was 14 years old. I was baptized by immersion in water that was cold. I was 14. The minister was saying all kinds of marvelous things from the Bible, about being buried with Christ and raised to new life and all those things. I know he was, he was a good man. I didn't think anything about that. I was thinking about how deep is it and how cold is it and what if I have to catch my breath and do I hold my own nose or does he hold my nose? I mean, these were the biggies. And I have since then now, spent over 45 years understanding what I did. When Eddie and I were married, the minister said the right things, dearly beloved and all that. I know he did. He did it a lot. He talked about the wedding feast in Canaan, what God has joined together. I'm sure he did that. He had that little book that has all that stuff in there. But I wasn't paying any attention to that. My one soul aim during the ceremony was not to fall down. If you just stay on your feet and get out of the building, that is a biggie. That's the main thing. And I have now spent 39 years reflecting in memory upon the meaning of two words, I will, not at the time afterwards. Abraham and Sarah entertained messengers. They came to the tent. Abraham and Sarah were hospitable, set three more plates. We have guests, had supper together. Later, he found out they were angels of God. If he had known, if Sarah had known they were angels of God, it would have been terrible. Sarah, here come three angels. What are we going to feed them? Whoo! My goodness, it was not till later. That's what makes it so beautiful. All the rich experiences, oh, it's in reflection. Paul, as far as I know, Paul never sat down on a Sunday afternoon and said, I think I'll write another book for the New Testament. He said, I need to write the church in Corinth again. And the church looked back upon those letters and said, Holy Scripture, that's the way life is. A woman anointed Jesus while he sat at table, says Mark. And some of the disciples objected and said, she's wasted all that. We could have used the money to buy food and shelter and dried milk and diapers and things for kids. And she's wasted it all. Jesus said, leave her alone. She's done a beautiful thing. And what she has done will be told in memory of her, wherever the gospel is preached, because she has anointed me for my burial. She didn't know she was anointing him for his burial. She was expressing her love and gratitude to Jesus. But what did that come to mean? It came to mean that she was anointing him for his own burial. If she had known that, she'd have spilled the ointment. She'd have cried and just made a mess. We don't know at the time. How is it a youth conference in Colorado? And the fellow that was in charge of it was one of these that thinks everything needs to be meaningful. Everything's got to be meaningful. And these were high school kids. He should have known better. But he kept telling everybody that everything was meaningful. Well, I didn't think it was. There were only about 60 kids. But when they got off that bus, it seemed like 500 and just went in every direction. Some of them you thought you'd never see again. Some you hope you'd never see again. And he would get us together. It seemed like three times a day and say, now we want this to be real meaningful. And isn't this a meaningful place? I mean, you know, the trees are meaningful out here in Colorado and the squirrels are really meaningful. And the pine cones really have a depth of meaning and just on and on. And he told us now Thursday morning at breakfast, it's going to be almost Eucharist. It's going to be a commune. It's going to be so meaningful. You're going to think it's like communion. This is really going to be meaningful Thursday morning at breakfast. Remember that Thursday morning breakfast really meaningful, really meaningful Thursday morning at breakfast. It's going to be sort of like the Eucharist. It's going to be so meaningful. Well, Thursday morning we came to the table. We didn't know what to do. Nobody knew how to have a meaningful breakfast. So then just stand around. You know, one boy didn't know what to do. He came dressed up. This is going to be meaningful. Well, you stir your eggs around. You don't know if you eat them or not. Do you eat meaningful eggs? What do you do with meaningful eggs? It was the most awful meal we had. If he had left it alone, they'd have come rushing in there knocking and banging and shoving and giggling and carrying on and eating the breakfast. And on Saturday morning when they put the bedrolls on top of the bus, even the worst rascal in the crowd would have said of that week, you know, this has been more church than church. You don't press things into the present. Leave them alone. And memory will take over and say, whew. Do you remember the time when we were in camp in Colorado? Yeah, yeah. I hear people making fun of hindsight. They say, sure, everybody has 2020 hindsight. No, they don't. I wish we did because hindsight is the necessary preference to foresight. It is memory that gives life to the church, gives it its continuity, gives it its story. This generation to that generation to this generation, just think how hard it was for the apostle Paul to establish churches and communities that had never had one, no precedent for anything, no wonder it was turmoil, turmoil, turmoil, because there was nobody there that had a memory that could say, when my grandmother joined this church, this is the way it was. I came here in 1927 and we just had a little frame building that didn't have any of that. Everything without precedent. What an awful way to start for what gives church its power and its meaning is the continuity of the memory of the community. You can call it tradition if you want to. And somebody says, but they don't get it right. Those older members get confused and they get the wrong ear and they're, who cares? Who wants it to be exactly right? If you want it to be exactly right, read the script, read the minutes. That's not the point. What we need, it seems to me in the church, more and more, is some good first class fuzzy thinking. If you want to have it just real clear, you can read the minutes. Quoting somebody exactly is often a misquotation. If I said something to one group and then somebody else said, well, he said so and so to another group, quoting me exactly would be misquoting me. What we want is the experience interpreted through memory and the reinterpretation and reinterpretation. That's the life of the church. And the only people able to carry that is one generation to another. The aging ones pass it on to the others and pass it on to the others. I was on a train some years ago, 20 years ago, going from Basel to Stuttgart, Germany. And I sat in the apartment of the train with an older woman, 77 years old, from Rostock in East Germany. I was surprised she was on the train in Switzerland. I said, I didn't know you could leave East Germany to go somewhere else. And she said, oh, yes, I'm old and they gave me a pass to visit my grandchildren in Switzerland. She said, when I got the pass, I said to the officer, what if I don't come back? And he said, who cares? You're just an old woman. She said, that's what I like about America. I said, what's that? And she said, you don't throw away old people in America. I said, well, I hope that's true. And then I got to thinking about it. When I went to see Mrs. Anderson, she was in a beautiful facility for older people. I mean, beautiful. It looked like a Holiday Inn, had a bright flagpole, silver flagpole with all the flags on it, big bed of cannas standing tall and red, and that black asphalt with the white slanted lines for parking. I like white slanted lines on the parking places. Reserve for visitors, it said. I pulled in there, only car there. There was room, I guess, for 75. I found her room. I went in. Well, Ms. Anderson, what are you in for? And she said, talking to myself. I said, have you had a visitor today? No. No, yesterday. No, this week. No, last week. You see, Mrs. Anderson belongs to a church of only 1500 members with women's groups meeting every day. With a large men's fellowship that has breakfast together and laughs and scratches and talks about golf and a youth group that goes to Europe every summer. And she worked in the children's department 42 years. Have you had a visitor today, Ms. Anderson? No. No, yesterday. No, this week. No, last week. And the woman from Rostock said, that's what I like about America. You don't throw old people away and hurt. We can do it, but just stereotype. Well, the young minister says going into the new church. Well, they just all live in the past. They just live in the past. Well, where would you live if the door marked the present were closed, closed, closed? You have only choice, two choices to live in the future, which is scary or to live in the past, which is comfortable. No wonder. Stereotypes. Well, they're fixed. We never did it that way before. I get tired of that. Somebody making that little cartoon, the little old woman in tennis shoes who says, we never did it that way before. We've never done it that way before. Listen, I don't think that fits. I find the most rigid people are not the aged people. Many of the aging people say, who cares? It's the others, young people. We have students that come to Candler first year, first day, then are as rigid as a stick. 20 -something years old, mine already made up on every subject. I was Sunday afternoon talking with some students on the campus at the University of Oregon and I didn't make a dent. I didn't make a dent. They had their Bibles and they already knew about heaven and hell and who wasn't going to heaven and what you had to do and just all seven steps of this and three steps of that and they were flipping those pages and flipping those pages and I'd say, but it isn't it also 18 and 19 years old fixed. I have never met anybody in her or his eighties as fixed as that. Why don't we quit saying that? You know what I would suggest? I would suggest that a young minister going to a church and their older people there of having memory sessions with the old people. If a crisis comes up in the church, get people together who've been in that church for over 50 years and say, you know, I know this is not the first time this has come up. How did you all handle it when it came up before? And listen and listen and listen before planning a big program. Get them together and say, I know you've had some marvelous plans. Just think what we have here. What did you all do when you were working and listen and listen and listen and to hear and to honor and to refer to those memories? Why not in church? When we were in Oklahoma, there was a woman named Lola who was a little girl at the time of the run into the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma. I'm not going to give a long history lesson, but at a certain time in 1893, the government allowed white settlers to go into that territory and claim land. And they lined up at the border and on a certain morning, the gun was fired by the army officer and buckboards, wagons and horseback. They ran and staked out the piece of land to call home. She was a little girl at that time. I heard Lola time and time again, just absolutely enthralled young people telling about the soldier in the old faded union uniform with a rifle in the crook of his arm, walking back in front of the horses and wagons to make sure nobody jumped the line and the snorting of the horses and the steam from their nostrils and the rubbing of leather on and the quivering of the horses and stomping of a foot to get the flies off and the fires being put out quickly in the children gotten into the wagons because they're about to fire the gun. And I tell you, young people sit around just couldn't believe it. She was there. I said, Lola, you must be the A number one citizen in your church. And she said, oh, they think I'm an old fuddy duddy. Can you believe that? Maybe she gets some of it mixed up, huh? I don't care. I don't care. Why not just get the older people together to remember as the fundamental beginning resource for the program to handle the crisis, to launch the campaign? How did you do this before? This church has been here a long time. Why not? My students have heard me tell about Scott Mama Day becoming a Kiowa Indian. He is a Kiowa Indian. He teaches literature at University of Arizona. I've invited him to speak here. I hope he comes. One of the really moving moments in talking with him was his telling about becoming a Kiowa. And I said, well, weren't you born a Kiowa? And he said, well, you're born a Kiowa, but you still have to become a Kiowa. He said, I was a little boy and one morning, real early, my father waked him and said, son, it's time to go. And he led me by the hand to the home of an old squaw. He left me there and said, I'll get you this evening. All day long, the old squaw told him the story of the Kiowa tribe, how it began up in the Yellowstone River, and why it's such a small tribe. You see, they came out of a hollow log in the Yellowstone River, and a pregnant squaw got stuck in the log and no more could come through. And so we're just a small tribe. Told about coming into Nebraska and Kansas, the coming of the white man, the fight over the buffalo, the wars with the other tribes being pressed south and south and south, and finally rounded up by soldiers and put in the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. She sang the songs, she told the rituals, she told the story, she sang the songs of blizzards and buffalo and tribes and war and white man. And she sang the songs and she told the story and it got dark and my father came and said, son, it's time to go. He said, I left her house, a Kiowa. What did she give him? She gave him a memory. Or in other words, she gave him his identity. In other words, she told him who he was. In other words, she created him. That's true.