Tuesday, September 20, 2005
The Explanation
"The hours of the elderly are dependent on the hours of the young"
Just as the clock hand
s tick slowly around the clock, so life returns again and again to the same place. It has been this way from the time of Adam and Eve and will remain until God says, "stop!" Everything has a cycle, and somewhere in this cycle is the "secret of life" that mankind searches for in his quest for Brigadoon.
In the world, today, there are few people who think far enough into their future to wonder how they will exist as elderly. They don't wonder, in the end, who will take care of them, or how...or why. "Take life as it comes" is a good motto for most things, but when it applies to this situation, it becomes a blindness. We must look to the future not only for ourselves, but also for our parents and our children. If we do not care about how we spend our "hours" as young people, no one will care how our hours are spent when we are old. If we do not treat our parents with respect, our children will not treat us with respect, and their children will not treat them with respect, and their children...
We MUST care about the pursuits we follow during those hours. Do we fritter away this time in meaningless gossip, or do we speak kindly of one another? Do we guzzle down a tenth beer to numb the past, or do we face the past head on and heal it? Do we smoke three packs of cigarettes a day to calm our nerves, or do we spend that time in stress-relieving activities with our loved ones? How many hours do we spend with our children, or do we just tell them to go play outside and let "Mommy relax"? These are precious hours, indeed, and when comes the time, we will look back on all those hours, but what will we see? A supportive family that loves us and takes care of us? Or an empty clock with no hands?
"The hours of the elderly ARE DEPENDENT ON the hours of the young." Without time spent in wise pastimes (which include "fun" and sometimes wisely irresponsible moments) during our youth, there are no hours of happiness for the old. Our elders look to us for support in many ways, but we must also remember to look to them; to remember that they've been where we are now, and that what they've experienced in life can be an incredible, spirit-giving lesson that we can carry with us, improving us, until the time when we can pass that lesson on. When we are young, we are in charge of our children, but when we are old, our children are often "in charge" of us, and how they handle us is dependent on how we treated their grandparents, and how we dealt with them.
Just as the clock hand
s tick slowly around the clock, so life returns again and again to the same place. It has been this way from the time of Adam and Eve and will remain until God says, "stop!" Everything has a cycle, and somewhere in this cycle is the "secret of life" that mankind searches for in his quest for Brigadoon.In the world, today, there are few people who think far enough into their future to wonder how they will exist as elderly. They don't wonder, in the end, who will take care of them, or how...or why. "Take life as it comes" is a good motto for most things, but when it applies to this situation, it becomes a blindness. We must look to the future not only for ourselves, but also for our parents and our children. If we do not care about how we spend our "hours" as young people, no one will care how our hours are spent when we are old. If we do not treat our parents with respect, our children will not treat us with respect, and their children will not treat them with respect, and their children...
We MUST care about the pursuits we follow during those hours. Do we fritter away this time in meaningless gossip, or do we speak kindly of one another? Do we guzzle down a tenth beer to numb the past, or do we face the past head on and heal it? Do we smoke three packs of cigarettes a day to calm our nerves, or do we spend that time in stress-relieving activities with our loved ones? How many hours do we spend with our children, or do we just tell them to go play outside and let "Mommy relax"? These are precious hours, indeed, and when comes the time, we will look back on all those hours, but what will we see? A supportive family that loves us and takes care of us? Or an empty clock with no hands?
"The hours of the elderly ARE DEPENDENT ON the hours of the young." Without time spent in wise pastimes (which include "fun" and sometimes wisely irresponsible moments) during our youth, there are no hours of happiness for the old. Our elders look to us for support in many ways, but we must also remember to look to them; to remember that they've been where we are now, and that what they've experienced in life can be an incredible, spirit-giving lesson that we can carry with us, improving us, until the time when we can pass that lesson on. When we are young, we are in charge of our children, but when we are old, our children are often "in charge" of us, and how they handle us is dependent on how we treated their grandparents, and how we dealt with them.
