Betty Friedan (1921-2006)
I would like to explore a way of understanding age and particularly time and the ways in which time is connected with and is disconnected from our growth.
This is a picture of Joshua Slocum.
Joshua Slocum was a merchant sailor that traveled extensively. With the invention of the steam powered boats, his craft of sailing eventually became extinct and he was soon out of business.
In 1892 Joshua Slocum was given a sailing ship the owner did not want. The boat was called The Spray.
Here is a picture of The spray.
This boat was in horrible shape. Joshua went out to the woods with an axe, chopped down some trees and out of the trees made new planks and rebuilt this ship.
In 1895, he got in the boat harbored in Boston, and sailed around the world, 46,000 miles. He figured out how to rig it so it would sail by itself while he slept. He was often attacked by pirates. One of those stories he wrote about is once, he saw the ship preparing to attack so he himself visible to them, then ran down below deck, changed clothes, ran back up and made himself visible again. Ran back down below, changed clothes, ran back up and repeated this several times. They thought there were multiple people on the boat and decided to not attack. This was the brilliance of Joshua Slocum. Before bed, he would pour nails all over the ship so if anybody tried to board while he was sleeping they would injure themselves. He at one point had a whole family of dolphins for hundreds if not thousands of miles trailing him. One day a shark came behind the boat and was going to eat one of the dolphins. So he took an iron skillet and tied it to a rope. He knew the shark would think it was something it could eat, so when the shark got close, he held the rope with his foot and pulled out a shotgun and killed the shark. This was Joshua Slocum. There are many stories about him. He wrote am amazing book about his journeys. On the week of my birthday, I think back to it and inspired me to write about aging. The book is called "Sailing alone around the world."
When he left Boston in The Spray that he built by hand from logs he chopped down himself, he was 51. When you think about your life, do you think, wow, when I am 51 that is when the adventure is going to start? When I am 51, I am going to be in the woods chopping down trees, sailing the world, and shooting sharks with shotguns, all alone? When you think about your life, when will you peak? When does your adventure begin?
This is Sue Oldum
When she was 61, she became the oldest person to swim the English Channel. 16 hours and 3 minutes. She did it again last month, Aug 2010, at 64. When you are in your 60's is that when you say I am going to put on a swim suit and swim to a different country?
This is the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Much of his work was trying to create the most seamless integration between which humans build and what nature creates. So for him, the highest form of architecture was one that seamlessly blends into its natural surroundings. One of the places that really inspired him was on the prairies of central Wisconsin. Then, after spending years on the the open flat spaces of the Midwest, he took a group of his students to the desert in Arizona. He bought hundreds of aces of land from the government East of Scottsdale at the foot of the McDowell Mountains. This area back then was very harsh and had extreme weather. Today it is now a utopia of sub-divisions, but at his time it was not that at all. He took tools and spent hours upon hours of digging into the rocks. Think about this, back then there weren't public water fountains there. So, he had to get water in the middle of the desert. They lived in tents, and built a compound called Taliesin West. It is beautiful. One of his students is quoted as saying, "For a number of years we spent all day just digging rock." When FLW did this, he was 70. When you are 70, are you going to go out in the desert with a shovel, without little electricity and dig for years to build a compound? It now has water and a pool, electricity, and a massive dinner theatre area. When you are in your 70's, is that when you will start new adventures?This video is of John and Polly Lewis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzlT5Obmsdo
They are in their 80's! Almost 90's!!! Do you think to yourself that when I am 89, that is when I will be at the top of my parenting game?
This is Georgia O'Keeffe.
She died at 98. One of America's most wonderful painters. Her friends say that up until the the weeks before her death, she was still painting at 98. Still painting at the top of her game. Have your best years gone by?
Is life a sort of explosion of youth? You hit your peak of relevance, connectivity, importance, and then from there a tapering effect occurs as you get older and older and then you die? How does the arch go?
2 Cor 4:16, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."
It may look like crap on the outside, but on the inside God is not wasting a single day and is making new life. Not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.
The phrase lose heart in the Greek language is the work KaKa. You might have learned this word in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." KaKa is a negative word. Paul is saying to the church in Corinth that there is no KaKa here. There is no losing heart here. What God is doing is renewing us every single day. This word renewing is derived from the Greek Ana Kanu. Ana means again, Kanos or Kanu means new. This is used most of the time when speaking of a freshness. So together, Ana Kanu, is used to mean God is making us new and fresh again every day. And the next day, new again. And the next day, new again. That is why there is no KaKa here. God is making us new again.
Here is why it is significant to me. In the Greek, there are two words that literally mean new. The first is neos, or neo. That word is used when referring to something about time. For instance, when you are gone for a while and you return home and want some milk, and you question is it a new carton? That is the word used there. New, neos. By this you mean how old is it? This passage does not use that type of new. Kanu is the kind of new that has nothing to do with the relation of time. Somethings can be new in relation to time, and yet be very stale right away. It can be newly created and yet it is nothing new cause we have seen that hundreds of times before. The word kanu is something else, which is very old, and yet some surprising way new in regard to the redemptive unexpected life giving of God.
I am just feeling a strong pull to go away from the things we think are new because right now, I am in a place of life where an idea that is very old, feels so fresh and new. My new goal in life is to avoid becoming a fad, and attempt to bring new, and refreshing life to friends in an old fashion sort of way. I mean the small little details of time we desire to spend with each other. The cards, the letters, the phone calls, and the small concept of listening and caring what occurs in peoples lives. Why is that people are surprised that I remember what you told me last week? That is truly what our society needs right now. The popular cheerleader aint so popular as an adult. Do you understand what I am saying? Yet, we always knew this would happen. We have to understand that our time and how we spend it with others is what makes life amazing. Stop the Kaka and show your friends that you care. Bring new life in an old way.
