Growing Wiser with the Years?

 

Do we really grow wiser with the years?

It is not an absolute given, especially if wisdom is something we resist.

Contrary to what we have heard, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. If we practice foolishness, we will cement it into our behavior patterns. If our thinking is stubbornly calcitrant, it will grow brittle and crack.

However, it does not take as much of an effort as a decision in order to grow wiser. 

We can and we should. It is normative. It is expected. It is the gracious way to age.

Eleven years ago, I turned 55, on this very day. I threw myself a party. I used it as a fund raiser for some causes that I loved.

I also wrote this (slightly edited to exclude some obsolete invitations):

--------------------------

Reflecting on 55

I am reflecting a bit - not too much, but some. Fifty five years once seemed like a lot of time. Now it doesn't. Different people have used that much time with varying degrees of effectiveness. Some have puttered along. Some have frittered it away entirely. Depending on the day of the week and the season on my life, I am somewhere in the continuum.

Tomorrow, I turn 55. It is a double matching digit birthday and I want to celebrate my gratitude for the opportunity of living. I have decided to give it away to three of my favorite local causes ... 

We are having a party!

I announced it and it is sort of a stone-soup party. I am bringing some meat, some song sheets, and myself. Whatever else happens, whatever else ends up on the table to eat, whoever comes, is all up to others.

My life has been sort of a stone soup life. I drop a little bit of something and others have added to it and made something of it.

In today's reading from "My Utmost for His Highest," Oswald Chambers quotes from Hebrews 11:8: "He went out, not knowing  whither he went."

I especially gravitated toward and related to this quote:

"One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question - "What do you expect to do?" You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder - you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a "going out," building in confidence on God."

So, I really don't know what this celebration is going to be or if anyone will come or contribute to the whole ... but I am going to show up.

And showing up is a pretty big deal in life.

My birthday presents are for the causes I mentioned because these are a few of the places where I would like to see some good soup brew. These are places where I am currently investing my life in a small way...

It really is not about me.

That is something I am learning about my life. It is not about me, but I am responsible for the choices I make inside my skin and exercise through it.

I am glad to be alive. I look forward to many years. I know 55 is not old even though I'll be able to get "senior coffee" at McDonalds and order off the senior menu at Denney's. However, I have less time now than I did before - more wisdom, but less time to use it. It would be presumptuous to count on what is not promised to the neglect of what is. I have not been promised unlimited days. I have been promised unlimited grace and countless opportunities for each day I live.

I (we) have also been promised that as we make small investments in others, those investments can and will multiply through the efforts of those who add their own to the pot.

So, the adventure continues and this is but a milestone. I invite you to celebrate with me by celebrating the life you have been given and investing it in living on purpose and in encouraging other people to become all they can be.

--------------------------

Now, I am 66, It is not a milestone birthday. At 64, the Beetles had a great song I could play. At 65, it was Medicare and a traditional retirement age in years past. At 66, it is the oldest my dad every got to be before he was taken from the earth by a brain tumor --- I I thought he was elderly.

I do have his toothless grin when my dentures are out and what a grin it was, especially when he was watching Urkle on television,

I did think I was wise at 55, but I also knew that I had a long way to go. Now, I think I have even further to go. Two days after the above post, I wrote this.

--------------------------

Wrong Door - Wrong Store

I had a pretty good lesson in humility and pride yesterday. It was a moment of internal embarrassment and readjustment in my thinking.

It was one of those outdoor shopping centers with a Best Buy and an Office Depot spaced with several other stores in between. I was comparing prices on laptops and calculating insurance reimbursements in light of a recent burglary. It is the upside of getting ripped off.

But that is not the story.

I had taken note of the order of the stores from the parking lot and calculated that I could get a nice walk in just by moving between them and within them.  I left Best Buys and began to walk toward Office Depot when a man crossed my path looking a bit dazed and confused and heading toward the Target Store.

When he was unable to open the door because he was attempting to enter through the exit, I mentally prepared to point at the entrance to help him out. I may or may not have actually pointed. I am a little fuzzy on this point because the real work was going on inside me. There was a flash of smugness and superiority. "I can read signs."

That was short lived.

At the next shop, I entered through the correct door - without a hitch. How proud of myself, I was. "I can read signs." I looked around and, in a moment of bewilderment, observed racks of clothes.

"Why are they selling clothes at Office Depot?"

They were not. They were selling clothes at T.J. Maxx.

Tom Sims, the great sign reader-adherer, had entered the wrong store while basking in the glory of in his ability to use the right door.

 "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." - I Corinthians 10:12

(Read it in THE MESSAGE and check out this day's "My Utmost for His Highest" reading for uncanny overlaps.)

So, which was worse, the wrong store or the wrong door?

Somehow, as I chuckled inside at my own fallibility and silly pride, I knew I would have to confess this in my blog and hang it out like dirty laundry for all the world to see.

There was also some mention of a speck in your brother's eye and a plank in ones own as I recall ...

--------------------------

 Life humbles us if we lean into it. That is not just OK. That is worth celebrating.

By the way, 2010 was a major year of change in my life. A little less than a month before my birthday, while it was still 2009, I had gastric bypass surgery. So, my birthday party was one of my first times of trying to eat and it turned into a bit of comedy.

--------------------------

Eyes Bigger than Stomach

I cannot imagine how many times I have heard and said, while staring at an insurmountably challenging plate of food, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."

Simply put: We put too much on the plate because it looked so good --- and manageable.

So last night at my birthday-stone-soup-fund-raising-potluck bash, I found myself staring a a much smaller collection of vittles on my plate and, after a few bites, thinking, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."

Then, before actually uttering the words, I began to chuckle.

That attracted some attention -- a grown man chuckling to himself while staring at a miniature hot wing.

I was chuckling at the thought, "My goodness, my eyes really ARE bigger than my stomach now ... without question. Lay them on the table beside each other and that is the reality."

So I shared the insight and others joined me in the chuckle which gave me permission for a long and hard belly laugh.

Just a little post-bariatric surgery humor.

--------------------------

Many more surgeries later, lots of pounds, and a number of years and adjustments, and I am still growing and enjoying laughs on myself.

 

Life continues to be an adventure and some days I get wiser and some days I don't.

 

Perhaps the best thing I can say about growing wiser is that it remains an intent and a prayer.

 

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom. - Psalm 90:12

 

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. - James 1:5

 

I am reflecting a bit - not too much, but some. Fifty five years once seemed like a lot of time. Now it doesn't. Different people have used that much time with varying degrees of effectiveness. Some have puttered along. Some have frittered it away entirely. Depending on the day of the week and the season on my life, I am somewhere in the continuum.

Tomorrow, I turn 55. It is a double matching digit birthday and I want to celebrate my gratitude for the opportunity of living. I have decided to give it away to three of my favorite local causes ... 

We are having a party!

I announced it and it is sort of a stone-soup party. I am bringing some meat, some song sheets, and myself. Whatever else happens, whatever else ends up on the table to eat, whoever comes, is all up to others.

My life has been sort of a stone soup life. I drop a little bit of something and others have added to it and made something of it.

In today's reading from "My Utmost for His Highest," Oswald Chambers quotes from Hebrews 11:8: "He went out, not knowing  whither he went."

I especially gravitated toward and related to this quote:

"One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question - "What do you expect to do?" You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder - you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a "going out," building in confidence on God."

So, I really don't know what this celebration is going to be or if anyone will come or contribute to the whole ... but I am going to show up.

And showing up is a pretty big deal in life.

My birthday presents are for the causes I mentioned because these are a few of the places where I would like to see some good soup brew. These are places where I am currently investing my life in a small way...

It really is not about me.

That is something I am learning about my life. It is not about me, but I am responsible for the choices I make inside my skin and exercise through it.

I am glad to be alive. I look forward to many years. I know 55 is not old even though I'll be able to get "senior coffee" at McDonalds and order off the senior menu at Denney's. However, I have less time now than I did before - more wisdom, but less time to use it. It would be presumptuous to count on what is not promised to the neglect of what is. I have not been promised unlimited days. I have been promised unlimited grace and countless opportunities for each day I live.

I (we) have also been promised that as we make small investments in others, those investments can and will multiply through the efforts of those who add their own to the pot.

So, the adventure continues and this is but a milestone. I invite you to celebrate with me by celebrating the life you have been given and investing it in living on purpose and in encouraging other people to become all they can be.

--------------------------

Now, I am 66, It is not a milestone birthday. At 64, the Beetles had a great song I could play. At 65, it was Medicare and a traditional retirement age in years past. At 66, it is the oldest my dad every got to be before he was taken from the earth by a brain tumor --- I I thought he was elderly.

I do have his toothless grin when my dentures are out and what a grin it was, especially when he was watching Urkle on television,

I did think I was wise at 55, but I also knew that I had a long way to go. Now, I think I have even further to go. Two days after the above post, I wrote this.

--------------------------

Wrong Door - Wrong Store

I had a pretty good lesson in humility and pride yesterday. It was a moment of internal embarrassment and readjustment in my thinking.

It was one of those outdoor shopping centers with a Best Buy and an Office Depot spaced with several other stores in between. I was comparing prices on laptops and calculating insurance reimbursements in light of a recent burglary. It is the upside of getting ripped off.

But that is not the story.

I had taken note of the order of the stores from the parking lot and calculated that I could get a nice walk in just by moving between them and within them.  I left Best Buys and began to walk toward Office Depot when a man crossed my path looking a bit dazed and confused and heading toward the Target Store.

When he was unable to open the door because he was attempting to enter through the exit, I mentally prepared to point at the entrance to help him out. I may or may not have actually pointed. I am a little fuzzy on this point because the real work was going on inside me. There was a flash of smugness and superiority. "I can read signs."

That was short lived.

At the next shop, I entered through the correct door - without a hitch. How proud of myself, I was. "I can read signs." I looked around and, in a moment of bewilderment, observed racks of clothes.

"Why are they selling clothes at Office Depot?"

They were not. They were selling clothes at T.J. Maxx.

Tom Sims, the great sign reader-adherer, had entered the wrong store while basking in the glory of in his ability to use the right door.

 "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." - I Corinthians 10:12

(Read it in THE MESSAGE and check out this day's "My Utmost for His Highest" reading for uncanny overlaps.)

So, which was worse, the wrong store or the wrong door?

Somehow, as I chuckled inside at my own fallibility and silly pride, I knew I would have to confess this in my blog and hang it out like dirty laundry for all the world to see.

There was also some mention of a speck in your brother's eye and a plank in ones own as I recall ...

--------------------------

 Life humbles us if we lean into it. That is not just OK. That is worth celebrating.

By the way, 2010 was a major year of change in my life. A little less than a month before my birthday, while it was still 2009, I had gastric bypass surgery. So, my birthday party was one of my first times of trying to eat and it turned into a bit of comedy.

--------------------------

Eyes Bigger than Stomach

I cannot imagine how many times I have heard and said, while staring at an insurmountably challenging plate of food, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."

Simply put: We put too much on the plate because it looked so good --- and manageable.

So last night at my birthday-stone-soup-fund-raising-potluck bash, I found myself staring a a much smaller collection of vittles on my plate and, after a few bites, thinking, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."

Then, before actually uttering the words, I began to chuckle.

That attracted some attention -- a grown man chuckling to himself while staring at a miniature hot wing.

I was chuckling at the thought, "My goodness, my eyes really ARE bigger than my stomach now ... without question. Lay them on the table beside each other and that is the reality."

So I shared the insight and others joined me in the chuckle which gave me permission for a long and hard belly laugh.

Just a little post-bariatric surgery humor.

--------------------------

Many more surgeries later, lots of pounds, and a number of years and adjustments, and I am still growing and enjoying laughs on myself.

 

Life continues to be an adventure and some days I get wiser and some days I don't.

 

Perhaps the best thing I can say about growing wiser is that it remains an intent and a prayer.

 

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom. - Psalm 90:12

 

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. - James 1:5

 

I had a pretty good lesson in humility and pride yesterday. It was a moment of internal embarrassment and readjustment in my thinking.

It was one of those outdoor shopping centers with a Best Buy and an Office Depot spaced with several other stores in between. I was comparing prices on laptops and calculating insurance reimbursements in light of a recent burglary. It is the upside of getting ripped off.

But that is not the story.

I had taken note of the order of the stores from the parking lot and calculated that I could get a nice walk in just by moving between them and within them.  I left Best Buys and began to walk toward Office Depot when a man crossed my path looking a bit dazed and confused and heading toward the Target Store.

When he was unable to open the door because he was attempting to enter through the exit, I mentally prepared to point at the entrance to help him out. I may or may not have actually pointed. I am a little fuzzy on this point because the real work was going on inside me. There was a flash of smugness and superiority. "I can read signs."

That was short lived.

At the next shop, I entered through the correct door - without a hitch. How proud of myself, I was. "I can read signs." I looked around and, in a moment of bewilderment, observed racks of clothes.

"Why are they selling clothes at Office Depot?"

They were not. They were selling clothes at T.J. Maxx.

Tom Sims, the great sign reader-adherer, had entered the wrong store while basking in the glory of in his ability to use the right door.

 "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." - I Corinthians 10:12

(Read it in THE MESSAGE and check out this day's "My Utmost for His Highest" reading for uncanny overlaps.)

So, which was worse, the wrong store or the wrong door?

Somehow, as I chuckled inside at my own fallibility and silly pride, I knew I would have to confess this in my blog and hang it out like dirty laundry for all the world to see.

There was also some mention of a speck in your brother's eye and a plank in ones own as I recall ...

--------------------------

I cannot imagine how many times I have heard and said, while staring at an insurmountably challenging plate of food, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."

Simply put: We put too much on the plate because it looked so good --- and manageable.

So last night at my birthday-stone-soup-fund-raising-potluck bash, I found myself staring a a much smaller collection of vittles on my plate and, after a few bites, thinking, "My eyes were bigger than my stomach."

Then, before actually uttering the words, I began to chuckle.

That attracted some attention -- a grown man chuckling to himself while staring at a miniature hot wing.

I was chuckling at the thought, "My goodness, my eyes really ARE bigger than my stomach now ... without question. Lay them on the table beside each other and that is the reality."

So I shared the insight and others joined me in the chuckle which gave me permission for a long and hard belly laugh.

Just a little post-bariatric surgery humor.

--------------------------

Many more surgeries later, lots of pounds, and a number of years and adjustments, and I am still growing and enjoying laughs on myself.

 

Life continues to be an adventure and some days I get wiser and some days I don't.

 

Perhaps the best thing I can say about growing wiser is that it remains an intent and a prayer.

 

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom. - Psalm 90:12

 

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. - James 1:5