This week I am on the move to a new parish in Moose Jaw. This is all brand new to me. This is one Saskatchewan community that I can say I am unfamiliar with and do not know a single person there. But this is Saskatchewan and there will many people who know people I know. Connections will abound. But as I pack up this becomes a season to reflect on what it means to plan for the remainder of your life.
Seventy years ago people did not live as long as we do today. Our lives have been extended on the average by almost twenty years over the past seventy years. The challenge facing every Canadian is ‘will these last twenty years be meaningful and purposeful or will this be treading water?
Every human being needs to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. No one wants to be condemned to watching TV for a good part of the day because there ‘is nothing better to do.’ What emptiness?
Some years ago one of our thirty-some couples shared their experience with his aged father. The father was considerably older than the mother who had predeceased him at an early age. “We can see Dad going down from time to time. We try to find an excuse to leave the kids with him overnight. Well, next morning, there is Dad whistling and a humming!”
He was needed! He had a purpose in life. Meaninglessness and boredom will accelerate your trip to the grave. What could give your day more purpose than two or three little grandchildren that need attention now?
If it could be possible we should have all our nursing homes filled with twelve year old volunteers who could become friends with our seniors, listen to their stories and experiences but enter into meaning conversations with them. It might be a littler noisy in the corridors of our nursing homes, but what welcome sounds? People respond with joy to any interaction with a twelve-year old. This would be a win-win situation.
What makes life meaningful is relationships. The lockdown of the past sixteen months has imposed great suffering on our elders. “No one visits!” Many families have observed that their mother has declined markedly because there was no contact with children and grandchildren. Loneliness shortens our life.
This is where we need to have reflection and planning for the last two decades of our life. What will make me want to get out of bed every morning?
Our Christian faith leads us out of our self into service and compassion for others. People can find great meaning to their lives by reaching out to those who have lost loved ones, need assistance with shopping and doing their income tax, and getting to their doctor’s appointments. We become more alive when we are helping others.
Horrors if meaninglessness limits us to watching TV to try to fill the empty spaces of the day.
The last two decades of life can be the time to truly become the person God’s wants us to become: hands of deep compassion. But meaning for our own personal life does not fall out of the sky. We need to do the hard work (fearful thought it be) to make our life worthwhile, right to the very end.
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