Learning in Retirement

I decided that I was becoming too reclusive in my 'old age' and needed to do something about it. I always seem to hibernate a little in winter...usually from Christmas until spring but this seemed a little more than that. I pretty much stopped doing some of my usual stuff. I haven't been to my SAR meetings since September or October and haven't been to church since Christmas. So I decided to look into "Learning in Retirement", a program that is based at Lincoln University that offers classes and various activities for retired people.

Joie and I looked into this back in 2004 but she broke her hip in February and we didn't get to follow through. I was struck by how regulated and paper-bound the program was back then and it hasn't gotten any better. You have to fill out forms for everything and the different classes and activities can't seem to share information so you are always filling out more paperwork and paying fees. If you take a class then you need a parking permit for Lincoln University or else you will get a ticket.  The fees are cheap. There is a basic membership fee of about $40 but then classes are only $12 each and the various clubs are free once you pay the membership fee.

I signed up for a class "The Czars of Russia" and for a trip by bus out to local Cole County and Miller County towns just to see what they are like. The trip was full so I went on a waiting list until they had enough for a second trip...it goes next week. I also joined the Hiking/Walking Club and the Bocce Club.

The Czars of Russia was taught by a former school teacher who essentially taught the class from various copies of family trees of the Czars with emphasis on the Romanovs. The teacher was just another retiree who was interested in the topic and decided to share her interests with the class. Her interests tended to focus on the sordid and gossipy side of the Romanovs...plenty of material to work from. Dr. Phil would have had his hands full.  The family trees were confusing because there isn't any real standard way of spelling some of the Russian names and they, of course, used names over and over again. Must of the Russian Czars were really Germans for the most part with only a drop or two of Russian and Romanov blood. The class was four weeks - one day a week - so we got into some detail. It was interesting, especially since I had just read  the "Young Stalin" biography of Josef Stalin from his early life up to the 1920s. Much of that book provided details on the underground and the workings of the Czar's secret police and the deteriorating social conditions.

The Hiking/Walking Club is basically a walking club -- the word "hiking" hasn't come up yet. Each Thursday about a dozen people show up at a designated spot and we walk for about an hour, usually in groups of three or four waling at the same speed. This is a walking and talking group so we aren't setting any land speed records. We did laps around the county park lake last week and will be walking on the green way this Thursday,

Today was the first Bocce Club meeting at Prison Brews. We had about 15 people for the morning group. There is also an afternoon group but not many showed up because the weather was deteriorating. It is refreshingly informal and casual. There are no permanent teams and we just number off by fours to get the teams together each week. We have a set of rules but they are pretty lax on some of them in favor of just playing the game and enjoying the day. My team lost but we had a good time. The temperature was barely 50 degrees and there was a steady wind so no one was interested in playing a second game  Most of us stayed for lunch and we expected to meet the afternoon group but only one guy showed up.

So next week is the bus trip to St. Thomas and Meta and Tuscumbia or Iberia. This will be interesting. I'll post an update if I survive.  

(I survived....details on Ken Across America blog)

Man of a certain age...

I turned 62 last August and it wasn't such a big deal for me. Time is slipping by...it's true, and I have a bunch of things I want to do but I didn't find that turning 62 was an important threshold. God knows, I've had other life hurdles that had an intense or major earth shattering impact but not this. But in our culture it seems that turning 62 means something. That is the age where one becomes eligible for social security. The term "elderly" seems to loom over one's head like a helium balloon.  There are "senior" privileges and menus and certain allowances that kick in as one gets older. Anyone can be a member of AARP once they reach 50 and Amtrak gives you the senior rate of 10% off when you reach 60 on a few trains but that goes to 15% at age 62. Banana Republic gives a 10% discount if you are over 50 but I don't know many people my age wearing Banana Republic stuff.  McDonald's gets our hearts pumping with discounted senior coffee. Apparently seniors can pig-out at Shoneys and Long John Silvers and Chili's and IHOP with a discount. I think this is all great and wonderful and I take advantage whenever I can.

That being said, today I had to go to my local pharmacy to get a prescription refilled. This is an old blood pressure pill that I've been taking for several years. My health is pretty good, generally, except that my blood pressure and cholesterol are borderline high and I've been putting on a few pounds. So, anyway, I phoned in the prescription this morning and they said it would be ready after 1:30 for me to pick up. The pharmacy is in a local grocery store so I headed over in the afternoon and picked up a few groceries that I decided I needed and then stopped by the pharmacy and picked up my meds...already in a little white bag.  I got home and put the groceries away and then opened up the bag and found something I did not expect. My pills are now fastened to a card with each pill labeled for a day of the week....like I'm too old and feeble to figure out that I need to take one every day.  Whose idea is this??? Some kind of a joke? Apparently I can't be trusted to take the pills every day anymore....

Au contraire, mon frère !!!

Blizzardpalooza

Blizzard warnings are out for today and early tomorrow. I don't think I have ever experienced a snow storm that was officially considered a blizzard. We had snow early this morning and a snow plow went down the street about 8 AM but we haven't seen one since and it is now after 11 PM. Interstate 70 is closed from St. Louis to Kansas City. Everything is closed. We had ample warning and most people stocked up on everything they need. We did not get any substantial ice as they did farther south but we have probably 15-20 inches of snow -- we had thunder snow for a while. The wind is blowing so hard that the snow is drifting 3-4 feet high around the house. I haven't heard of any local power outages. Temperatures will get down to -7 over the next couple days and not reach the mid-20s until Friday. I figure I'll try to shovel the sidewalk out to the street tomorrow but leave the driveway alone until conditions improve.  That picture is from around 4 PM -- looks like a long way out to the mailbox.

The Dawn of Redeeming Grace

Silent Night is such a familiar song. I have sung Silent Night in church or elsewhere maybe 200 times or more and followed along with the words probably over 1,000 times. We even sing it in German sometimes during our Christmas Eve candle-light services. The third verse of Silent Night makes a reference to "the dawn of redeeming grace". For some reason, this year, that short phrase of five words has stuck in my consciousness through the Christmas season and, now, well into the new year.

The Dawn of Redeeming Grace... In the song I suppose it is a reference to the birth of Jesus, the Christ child, who is our one true path to salvation. The Gospel of John, in chapter 1- verse 9, describes the coming of Jesus as "The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world". A new light was coming. A dawn of a new day was coming that would change everything. There was another dawn -- Easter morning - when the diciples went to the tomb and saw that Christ, sacrificed on the cross, had defeated death and the massive burden of our sins and had risen in glory.

But that phrase represents an actual happening - the word "dawn" can be a verb as when something 'dawns' on us. The dictionary says that there are three aspects of the word "dawn" when used as a verb: 1. to become clear or enter one's consciousness or emotions; 2. to appear or develop; and 3. to become light.

We experience the Dawn of Redeeming Grace on a personal level many times during our lives. At baptism we are brought forth into the light of salvation, even though we may not realize it until much later. At our confirmation we again experience this special dawning as we comprehend what God redeeming grace actually is and means to us on a personal level. We also experience this through the bond of communion when we personally accept Jesus' body and blood in the form of the bread and wine. This is our one physical interaction with Jesus taken on the most private and personal level but also in a public way with the "body of Christ", the other members of the congregation. Through this dawning we experience a new light of God's love and forgiveness of sins.

There are many other times in our life when we have this dawning experience - maybe in the face of a newborn child or an act of kindness or personal sacrifice. We may recognize it in the face of someone we love or during a brief encounter or conversation. It may come as we appreciate the wonder of nature or recognize a special blessing. At the end of our life, we again will experience the Dawn of Redeeming Grace but this time as the first light of a new glorious and everlasting day. That day was made possible by the very first Dawn in Bethlehem and the suffering and death of Jesus followed by the glorious Dawn of Easter morning.

Thanks be to God.