My Day In A Nutshell - Peace for the Aging

Happy Thursday everyone!  It’s another fun filled day of sharing the things in my day that I love with you so that you can give them a try if you’d like and maybe you will love them too.

First up, today’s entry in The One Year Chronological Bible.  I have the New International Version.  Today’s topics were the part where Jesus Forgives an Adulterous Woman and Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind.  Whether you are Christian or not or believe in Jesus or not I really think that you can find a positive message that resonates within you and that will heal your soul in the readings no matter who you are or what religion you follow.  I find something every single time and most of the time it is a simple passage that isn’t even really part of the main message.  It’s usually just a sentence that makes me think or that reminds me of something I saw in the news or experienced recently or gives me guidance on how to handle certain situations going forward better than I have in the past.  Today it got me thinking about how if we changed the way we approach trying to make a point (particularly during our interactions with strangers online) we might be more efficient at teaching a better way to others and reduce the amount of bullying online.  While I do realize that there are some people whose whole point is to be mean to others online I really feel that it is an extremely small number of people and that most of us just don’t communicate well through writing or are misunderstood because intent and body language can’t always be expressed through writing.  I mean that is why we have emoticons in the first place isn’t it?  Because we realized we needed a way to express body language in our writing.  But even with emoticons people begin to assume malicious intent and the smiley face that you typed because you have really do have a nice happy smile on your face is interpreted to be a sarcastic nail meant to drive your point home.   It’s along the same lines as a person who is cheating always assuming and accusing their spouse who isn’t cheating of cheating because they know in their own heart the tactics they use to cheat and try to get away with it and the innocent actions of their spouse are then misinterpreted to be the same thing.  A poisoned heart will only see poison in others even when there is no poison to see.  It’s a learned paranoia based on one’s own evil actions.  Anyway, I realized in that moment of reading that we have gone from walking alongside a person gently nudging them in the right direction through wisdom and ACCEPTANCE and LOVE (the way we guide small children with kind words and through play) to trying to hammer our point home chest to chest, pointed finger to pointed finger through judgment and criticism and anger.  You’ll never convince someone to walk along with you in your beliefs by strong arming them into it.  It is only through friendship and respect that you will ever convince someone that your way is a better way.  You can only guide someone if you are willing to walk along with them rather than position yourself AT them.  It isn’t at all what today’s entry was specifically about, but just a single line reached me in the way I needed to be reached today and hopefully my sharing it here will have a positive impact on the world that I could never begin to predict.  Feel free to use the link I have provided to the book so you can follow along with the daily readings in The One Year Chronological Bible on the go if you’d like.

Next I read today’s entry from The Upper Room 

using my Good News Bible in the Good News Translation.  It was a story about a couple who sold off a large portion of their belongings and took the frightening journey of change and moved to a retirement center leaving their old way of life behind.  Again this got me thinking about things that weren’t necessarily intended.  I’ve worked in the past with many different programs that are designed to assist those that are aging through the transitions that often come as a part of aging.  Sometimes this can include not being able to fully care for oneself without assistance anymore and a loss of independence and even a loss of home and family.  The problem is that the people who create and work in these programs are still younger and have not gone through this situation yet and ultimately will never fully understand what it is like and will always be less efficient in their assistance because if it.  Most of these people who are trying to help are fully aware and sensitive to the fact that they can’t really fully understand though and there is a kindness and empathy and generosity there because of this awareness.  It got me wondering though how often do we really ask the people who are going through it about it and even if we did ask how many of them would feel comfortable being completely honest and even if they do feel completely honest discussing it do they even yet know what would help them or would have helped them through it anyhow and could someone younger even give that to them or can only someone who has already been through it provide any sort of real comfort or assistance?  And then I felt a moment of sadness for how discarded and disrespected and embarrassed and depressed and lonely and scared the last legs of life feels for some people.  When you think of all of the accomplishments someone might have achieved in their life boiling down to a bed in a shared room with a stranger who might or might not even recall their own name anymore and with nurses who are good people but too busy to do much more than pop in and out with medications and sponge bath and feeding schedules you can’t help but imagine that person who was once filled with so much life and who made such an impact lying there alone wondering what it was all even for and feeling all sorts of fear and despair.  I can only imagine though because I have not yet been through it and in order to spare me from a truth that might hurt me in some way my friends and family members who went through it and since have passed didn’t share with me what it is like any more than any of the other people I met through my work in these types of places did even when I asked how they were doing and if there was anything I could do for them or that they needed.  Maybe for some of them just the fact that I asked or in some cases needed to ask those questions felt shameful and embarrassing.    I won’t ever really know until I am in their shoes and every person is different anyhow.  All I can do is hope that they felt completely content and peaceful with their circumstances and that my encounters with them were an enjoyable bonus to their day.  It doesn’t stop me from wanting to figure out how we can do better and make the process and the situations better in the future though.  Anyway, like I said before… sometimes you should read things not for what is in them, but for what they inspire in you even if it doesn’t have anything to do with what was in there in the first place.  I have included links to the iPhone app and the iPad app if you are interested.

Then of course I read a chapter of the latest book I am reading strictly for fun.  It’s a book called The Millionaires by Brad Meltzer.  It is a book I have read before, but it has been long enough ago that it is almost like I am reading it for the first time.  All I will say today is this… has life ever gotten to the point where you were tempted to do something you knew was wrong because you couldn’t see a legitimate way out and had just enough rightful anger inside to begin to be able to justify it in your mind?  Get the book and come along on this journey with me.  

Then I had to get ready to film some videos and pulled out a sample bottle of the San Francisco Soap Company Milk Hydrating Lotion that I received from a stay at a Baymont Inn recently.  It smells a lot like a mildly sweet pressed powder candy like a Sweet Tart or something along those lines, but as do most hotel body lotions the scent only lasts on the skin for about 3 seconds.  

I filmed 3 videos, but due to an extended babysitting gig didn't get one edited or uploaded for today.  Bummer.  I did however spend time surfing and sledding down hills on boxes and painting handmade beads and making corndogs and hot chocolate.  I also watched Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge.  Not a bad way to spend a few hours of my day. 

Just before the babysitting gig I was sent a free Redbox movie rental and decided it is finally time for me to suck it up and see Frozen.  I always avoid things that become too popular and trendy,  I will get around to seeing them eventually and I do enjoy animated movies so I tend to choose them first.   It could be years before I bother to watch The Hunger Games or even the Twilight movies though.  Watching Frozen is what I will be doing tonight.  No promises that my ears won't be plugged when the Let It Go song comes on.