Christmas ideas... Black Friday options!

Posted by Terry McNichols

Both Leona and I have mentioned Agros International in several past posts. Ken & I will be visiting our Agros village in El Salvador again in January and the organization is close to our hearts in our effort to do our small part in confronting world poverty. If you are looking for ways to make your Christmas gift giving more meaningful, please consider the online Gift Catalog offered by Agros as a way to give gifts with purpose to family and friends. It is always sobering to realize how little it takes to make a huge difference in the life of a family in a poverty-stricken land. Surely someone you know would be honored by your gift.

Amazing Grace

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

I am captivated by the concept of grace. It is a word that is used to describe so many things – including our journey into aging ala this blog!

Grace means many different things to each person who hears the word and swirls it around her own heart and soul. I think of descriptions I learned in childhood like, “Grace isn’t cheap, but it’s free.” Or, of course, the the acronym that defines grace as God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

I loved Philip Yancey’s description of grace: “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. And nothing you can do to make God love you less.” It seems so simple. God loves like no one can love – with no conditions and full of reconciliation. (From What’s So Amazing About Grace?)

I think this season of the year is all about grace. It begins with gratitude at Thanksgiving, and bursts full of life and light at Christmas. Nothing says it better than the old hymn, “I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.”

I recently heard this rendition of that hymn. Listen and see if you don’t feel, taste and hear the sounds of mercy, love, grace and redemption.

Dirty words - inbound

Posted by Terry McNichols

This post really has very little substance. But I was so humored by the fact that an email sent by me to a very large corporation with whom I work, bounced back at me with the title "Dirty words, inbound," and the following message:

This email has not been delivered to the intended recipient and is being returned to you due to inappropriate language or content.

Since the email contained a list of some upcoming venues and some details we were working on, it took several aborted attempts at getting the email through before I began to delete certain phrases and sets of letters to get at the culprit. It turned out that the initials of one of the events formed a word that the spam and "dirty words" censor had been taught to reject.

Since I never have, and probably never will, write an email with "dirty words, inbound," I still chuckle at the thought.(photo by tellwe, shared via Flickr)

Rerun Tuesdays - Musical Chairs Revisited

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

This post deserves a spot on our Rerun Tuesdays!
Every award-winning movie has a story behind it. Musical Chairs is no exception. While it may not have won an Oscar, it did win an Honorable Mention award from Mature Media Services, and is being shown around the country in churches and universities.

The idea behind Musical Chairs was conceived in brainstorming sessions involving Richard and me. We wanted to somehow capture our deep conviction that people in the second half of life still have much to give, learn and experience. In our work with midlife and older adults we were finding that people were all too often living out a self-fulfilling prophecy--that retirement is for leisure and hiding. We believe, with all of our hearts, that this generation of midlife and older adults has so much more to give, and that with our talents, gifts and experiences we can still “change the world.”

Our idea was to have some kind of “talking head” video where we interviewed people in the second half of life who agreed with us. But it got more interesting than that!

Enter Jonathan, our son, and independent film producer. He and his friend, Bryan Gough got together and started writing a screenplay. And before you knew it, we were in our church basement turning it into the stage for the production of Musical Chairs! We hired actors off of Craig’s list, recruited every friend we could find, bought endless amounts of Krispie Kremes and pizzas, and shot the film in 3 days.

The end result is a thought-provoking 9-minute film, produced on DVD and available through ChurchHealth. It comes with a study guide that will spark a lively discussion among Boomers and beyond. After all, we need to be thinking about whether “retirement” is just for kicking back, or if it is a time to find significance and purpose through new doors of opportunity.

More doors? Well, you’ll have to watch it to find out what that’s about. Better yet, buy it.

Grandparent resource!

Posted by Terry McNichols

Attention grandparents! If you check out Grandparenting.com, you can find a very useful, down-loadable guide called 100 Free Things to Do With Your Grandkids. It is a great resource. I think I will try out #82, Make a Leaf Rubbing, since I have easy access to an entire yard full of leaves. My granddaughter from Texas visited recently and excitedly noticed that the trees were RED and YELLOW and ORANGE! We collected a few pretty leaves for her, but ran out of time to do something creative with them.

The site also has a place where you can select the name of your city and sort by category and age of child to find the best places to go. This would be useful when visiting a large city, even if you don't live in one. I'm excited to try out some of the places listed for Seattle.

(Photo by jimmiehomeschoolmom, shared via Flickr)

Speaking of brains....

Posted by Terry McNichols

While we seem to be on the topic of brains, let me point you to an amazing book, written by an amazingly intelligent human being, John Medina. You can buy the book, Brain Rules, -- or if you prefer -- John gives a lot of his insights away on his website. Straight from his website, "Dr. John J. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist focused on the genes involved in human brain development and the genetics of psychiatric disorders." If you want to know more about him, find it here. John's 12 brain rules are fascinating. See the following video to learn about one that is extremely important!

Stuff - my personal soapbox...

Posted by Terry McNichols

Speaking of brains, Wikipedia states that "Brain imaging studies (PET) have shown that the cerebral glucose metabolism patterns seen in OCD hoarders were distinct from the patterns in non-hoarding OCD. The most notable difference in these patterns was the decreased activity of the dorsal anterior cingulated gyrus, a part of the brain that is responsible for focus, attention, and decision making."

Recently in Seattle a very sad story evolved about an 89-year-old man who set fire to his condemned apartment building, supposedly because he was due to be physically evicted and could not deal with the things he had collected. He had a couple of cars filled to overflowing and storage units throughout the city, and could no longer access most areas of his apartment unit. He died in the blaze.

I realize that most of us are not OCD hoarders, but some of us do carry some of the distinct characteristics. I must go through my clothing and discard whatever hasn't been worn in a year, but every time I try to start the process, I get hung up on the decision-making process, instead thinking about how I will surely wear the item at a later date, a lower weight, or some day in the future when I will surely have need of business attire or find lots of parties to attend. It is painful to give up on those clothes that have served me well in the past. It's even more difficult to give up on the ones that were purchased and never worn, or worn once but proved uncomfortable or just didn't "feel right."

Ah, focus, attention, and decision making -- all things I seem to lack at this stage of my life.

Frank Lloyd Wright said that "Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions." I need to start sweeping, once again.
(Photo by elgin.jessica, shared via Flickr)

Brain growth

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

Periodically we have written about our frustration with our memories. There are times that I wonder if my brain is even functioning. But, I recently read that at midlife (or “second adulthood” as Gail Sheehy calls it) our brain actually grows! Get this:

Even our brains are maturing in ways that promote this transition. Recent research shows for the first time that we and adolescents—and no other age group – experience new brain growth. It takes place in the medial temporal lobe, the area identified with emotional learning. The actual new growth is in myelin, the fatty coating to nerve fibers that insulates and speeds up connections between nerve cells. This augmented brain activity plays a crucial role in helping us synthesize what experience teaches, and it enhances our ability to make considered judgment calls. The same process that accounts for the transformation of impulsive and irresponsible teenagers into thoughtful adults comes back for an encore at midlife, just in time to make us even more thoughtful—dare I say, wise?*

So, if I appear to be forgetting something, I’m actually synthesizing. Just give me some time….

*(Quoted from Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, pg. 27, by Suzanne Braun Levine, based on research by Dr. Francine Benes of Harvard Medical School.)
(Photo by Rob Gale, shared via Flickr)

Rerun Tuesdays - Getting rid of stuff

Posted by Terry McNichols

A home is like a reservoir equipped with a check valve. The valve permits influx but prevents outflow. Acquisition goes on day and night, smoothly, subtly, imperceptibly. I have no sharp taste for acquiring things, but it’s not necessary to desire them. Goods and chattel seek a man out. They find him even though his guard is up. E. B. White, Essays

E. B. White is much better known for Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. But his essays are a delight and he starts our discussion of stuff so perfectly. I came across this quote in the middle of my last move and identified completely. The essay is hilarious, beginning like this:

"For some weeks now I have been engaged in dispersing the contents of this apartment, trying to persuade hundreds of inanimate objects to scatter and leave me alone. It is not a simple matter. I am impressed by the reluctance of one’s worldly goods to go out again into the world."

I brag about the fact that there is a box waiting to be filled and transported to Goodwill in my house at all times. I do seriously make a trip to Goodwill almost weekly, usually with a small box of belongings, but still we have too much stuff. I believe this is one of the big challenges of aging: How do we part with our stuff? And when do we part with our stuff? And who will have to do the work of parting with our stuff if we don't keep working at it?

I made a pact with myself several years ago to seriously begin to get rid of stuff. I had just stopped in at an estate sale, hoping to nab some good stuff, and was aghast to find an elderly woman's entire life laid out for the public to peruse. Our stuff loses it's value and has the possibility of this type of an end. When I came across a table displaying this woman's bras, I made a pact to begin getting rid of the things my children won't be needing or wanting. I can't promise that I've done a great job of fulfilling that pact, but I am working on it. Since my husband and I keep moving to smaller places, we have had to let things go, but we have not yet stopped accumulating, so the task remains.

Stay tuned for many parts to this thread on "stuff."

Is Your Hut Burning?

Posted by Terry McNichols

When I picked this particular story to post, I had no idea that it would be ready for publication shortly after the massive fires that burned in Southern California. My dorm (and Leona's) at Westmont College, our alma mater, burned to the ground. The college lost several buildings, including 14 homes for faculty that were completely destroyed. The students had to take refuge in the gymnasium. Many private homes in the Montecito area were destroyed. Westmont has been here before, with a residence hall burned in a 1964 fire. Once again, the fire raged out of control. Here's the story I had ready to post:

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.

Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.

But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger. "God, how could you do this to me!" he cried.

Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

It is very difficult, in the midst of suffering, to understand how God is at work. What smoke signal did this fire send? I will be interested in seeing in the weeks ahead how God uses the Westmont community in this time of trouble.

(Photo by Creativity+TimothyK, shared via Flickr)

What is Justice?

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

For the next three weeks the class I attend on Sunday mornings will be addressing the issue of Justice. This week's was a fascinating discussion as we tried to actually define what justice is. The teacher led us through some noble attempts by well-known philosophers such as Aquinas, Augustine and Aristotle.

We could describe what we thought injustice looked like, but actually defining justice was hard.

Injustice is defined as an abuse of power (International Justice Mission). Injustice wreaks havoc and destruction on individuals, communities and nations.

It's hard to define justice, but it is easy to recognize it when it is in action. I saw justice at work recently at a fund-raiser for Agros International. This organization's mission is "to see rural poor families own agricultural land, attain economic self-sufficiency, realize their God-given potential, and pass on to future generations the values and resources that enable them to flourish."

Agros is working at bringing justice to people whose lives have forever been impacted by the injustice of civil war, genocide, and corrupt power. I'm both awed by and proud of Agros and its efforts.

Our deepest fear

Posted by Terry McNichols

We have all just witnessed an historic election in our country, and whether you were voting with the winning side or not, we can all agree that the importance of this day has been celebrated throughout the world. I thought this speech by Nelson Mandela fit with both the historical moment and our discussion on fear:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Nelson Mandela - Inaugural Speech 1994

(Photo by NCavillones, shared via Flickr)

My Calling

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you how deeply I feel about ministry with and through people in midlife and beyond. I have spent most of my professional career planning, developing and implementing social and health care programs for older adults and their families. That has been rewarding, but nothing gets my ministry heartbeat racing more than helping church leaders grasp the importance of building powerful and effective ministry options for people in the second half of life. I spend many of my waking hours trying to do just that. One organization that I believe in (enough to serve on the Advisory Board!) is CASA – Christian Association Serving Adult Ministries. When I joined it several years ago, the acrostic stood for Christian Association of Senior Adults. In an attempt to be broader in its appeal, CASA has chosen to expand its service to all adult ministries.

This week we will be traveling to Southern California to participate in CASA’s Leadership Conference. I will be leading an afternoon workshop about ministry with midlife women and Dick will share on a panel with other pastors who lead 2nd 1/2 ministries. It is a critical time to continue to fan the flame and build ministries that will meet the needs of people age 50+ and reach them with the good news of Christ.

Several months ago, CASA held a Celebration of Life event in Southern California. This video was shown there. It reveals the heartbeat of this ministry.

Veteran's Day - a guest post

Posted by Richard Bergstrom

My father, Rudy Bergstrom (back row, center) was a flight instructor during WWII. Though he never flew in combat, he trained many pilots who did. His flying career began with a flight over his hometown of Somers, Montana when he was 21 years old. He took an immediate interest in flying and enrolled in flight training. As the war heated up, there was a great need for pilots, and he answered the call. Just as he was about to embark on further flight training, his career was almost cut short by the loss of part of one of his fingers, when it was crushed between two railroad cars in Somers. As was typical of so many of the WWII soldiers, he didn’t talk a lot about his experiences while we were growing up, but he did continue flying, and even survived three crashes, none of which were due to pilot error, however. Here is he after landing an army reserve plane on the ice in front of our home on Flathead Lake, MT. As he grew older he seemed to be more willing to talk about his flying experiences, and collected quite a scrapbook with photo albums of his flying days. As the years have gone by, our admiration for our father has grown as we have come to realize the full extent of who he is and what he did during those years.

A few years ago, we toured the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle, and were amazed to find that so many of the planes in that museum he had flown. The list is impressive: Aeronca L-38; BT-9; Piper J3 Cub; L-38 Kaydet; Fairchild F-24; Stinson SR Reliant; Stearman PT-13; and even a B-17. But his favorite airplane had to be the B-25, which he incorporated into his email address later in life. This summer, he and my mom, Ruth, managed to hitch a ride on a private jet flying from Kalispell, MT to Seattle, WA. He described that experience as “the highlight of my life.” Now, at age 85, he faces his greatest challenge. A risky surgery lies ahead. There is no certainty of the outcome. Each of us five siblings is seeking to grab precious moments with our father and hear the stories one more time of his adventures in flying. Each of us has discovered, at midlife, a hero in our father, a veteran of WW II.

(That would be my brother and me standing on the ice with the airplane! Thanks, Bro, for the guest post! Terry)

The Photo Albums

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

Their stories long to be released from the adhesive photo album sheets now turned brown from time. Today I spent several hours pouring over them with my mom and dad-in-laws. There were pictures of aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, siblings, and many whose lives started way back into the past two centuries. I heard stories of births, deaths, divorces, accomplishments, dreams come true, and some dreams gone poorly.

The pictures were still. The stories were not. Death may take a person’s life but it does not take their story.

I’m reminded again of how we inherently want to know who we are and from where we come. We love to see pictures of ourselves and our children in grandparents’ albums and see that even our lives are a part of their tapestry!

The pictures and the albums are treasures and the stories are priceless.

I’m also wondering if my children and theirs will have the same rich experience watching family history in digital format on my laptop. There’s just something about those golden-brown albums.(Photos by doeth, Joe Shlabotnik, shared via Flickr)

Vigil for Ben Towne

Posted by Terry McNichols

I sat at my computer to write something that would describe the vigil service held Wednesday night to lift up the Townes in prayer in this difficult time. I found, however, that I cannot begin to describe what happened in that church, filled to overflowing with 1000 grievers, as the body of Christ came together to mourn. Instead, I would like to link to a beautiful description, written by someone I don't even know, bound together via the internet by mutual friends and the blogs of same. Read here what was so eloquently summarized:

Jesus wept, you know. He lost a dear friend, and He wept. But what always surprises me about that story is that He didn't weep when He found out that Lazarus had died: He wept when he saw everyone else in such devastating grief. It says, "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled... Jesus wept." I wonder if Jesus had only really experienced the "catching" part before-- this part on the Heaven side, the part that must be more welcome than goodbye. Before He was human, he must have always experienced more of the celebration when a soul passes into Heaven than the grief. But as a human: He saw it. He must have realized the incredible pain that exists on the earth side-- on the temporal side. On the side that can't see ahead, that doesn't have a glimpse of the eternal. He realized the immense pain that a family could go
through during a death... And it made Him weep.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4

Getting rid of stuff

Posted by Terry McNichols

I wrote here about getting rid of books. Now I'm working on getting rid of CDs. At least I have found a better way to deal with CDs. I am joining the iPod generation. For a number of years we have had an older components-type CD player, in an inconvenient location, meaning that I didn't really play much music other than one CD at a time in a cheap CD player. Recently I decided it was time. I now have an 80 gig iPod and wireless speakers and have spent far more time that I care to divulge uploading all of our lifetime of CDs. Now I can play anything in our collection within just a few seconds of deciding what matches my mood of the day. I have music on much more than ever before, since it is now so convenient. And I'm listening to pieces I had long ago forgotten we owned.

My next step (when I can convince my husband that he is ready to give up the actual physical CDs) will be to begin swapping those CDs on the Swap-a-CD site. I can get more books to read, CDs that I would like to add to my collection, or DVDs with the points I acquire. We began to order CDs of some of the old vinyls my husband was still holding on to and have even cleared those out of our attic.

So what shall I listen to ... classical? opera? country western? Christian? So many choices!

Ben Towne

Posted by Terry McNichols

There are no words as I stand in vigil with so great a cloud of witnesses over the deepening pain of the Ben Towne family. The hope-filled post of October 20th documented 3-year-old Ben's journey of six rounds of chemotherapy, surgery to remove a tumor, stem cell transplant, twelve sessions of radiation, twelve antibody infusions, and six courses of oral meds since August 17, 2007. We all collectively held our breaths in prayer for a complete remission. Yet it appears this is not to be.

I have no answers. Only pain for this young family that has been through so much and yet still has more pain to come. In trying to come to terms with my own grief, I come again to the powerful words of Brahms Requiem, Movement 3, English translation, from Psalms 39:4:

Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand breadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee. Surely every man walks in a vain show: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heaps up riches, and knows not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them.

Rerun Tuesdays - on mouse holes

Posted by Terry McNichols

I suffer from the usual aging annoyance of marching into a room with great certainty and forgetting completely why I am there. I retrace my steps, hoping that something along the way will jog my memory and get me back on track. Or I hurry to my computer, sit down, and can’t remember what was so pressing that needed my immediate attention and 3 or 4 emails later, get up and remember that I was in the middle of a recipe. I go to the grocery store, leaving my list on the counter at home.

I am at a total loss to remember to bring my eco-friendly grocery bags into the store. We here in Washington are being hounded to bring our own grocery bags and I am dedicated to the idea. But the few times I have finally remembered and gone back to the car to pick up the bags, they were at home by the front door. I have requested a huge sign outside the grocery store saying: “Don’t forget your bags.” There is one store here that has done just that. Now I forget to read the sign.

If my husband takes a day off that isn’t his usual day off, I am out of sync all week. Two times last Saturday I tried to remind my husband to turn on the radio and listen to the sermon since we had to miss our usual Sunday service. The second time he reminded me it was only Saturday, he had a strange, knowing look on his face. I wonder if he thinks I’m losing it. I wonder at times if I am.

But this is even worse. I do this every day. Yesterday I went up to our loft to get a box. While there I noticed the guest bed and decided to change the sheets. The phone rang. I hurried down and answered it. Someone wanted a name and address. I sat at my computer to find the name, then read some email, followed a link somewhere. Before long I remembered the project for which I needed a box, and went up to the loft. And there I finished making the bed. I begin the day with a list of goals that really must be accomplished, if not by the end of the day, then soon. I am like this hound:

The fable is told about a bloodhound who started a hunt chasing a stag. A fox crossed the path, so the hound chased the fox. After a while a rabbit crossed the path, so the hound went after the rabbit. Later, a mouse crossed the path and the hound ended up chasing the mouse into a hole. The hound began his hunt on the trail of a magnificent stag and ended up watching a mouse hole!

Being computer addicted certainly does contribute to watching a lot of mouse holes. Some are fun and worthwhile, while others are deep holes down which one can fall and not surface for hours at a time. So please, don’t ask me what I do all day. I probably won’t remember.

(Mouse hole Photo by Hot Grill, shared via Flickr)

I Will Never Forget Moldova

Posted by Leona Bergstrom

Those words are printed on the front of a t-shirt given to me by our short-term missions team that went to Moldova last spring. The words are so true. Some days I blaze through my merry, prosperous, American schedule in such a flurry that the memories of Moldova are just a blur. But God does not let that last for long. Moldova and its people are emblazoned on my heart and etched in my memory - forever.

A group of us have committed to praying fervently every day for the next 30 days for God’s direction regarding our ministry in Moldova. We want to be open to taking another team in 2009 if that is what God would want us to do. Our brothers and sisters in Moldova and at Bethany Church have invited us with open arms and hearts to return.

This week I received a glorious picture and report from the pastors at Bethany. Amazingly, through the hard work of the congregation and generous donations of their partnering friends here in the U.S. and Scotland, they have finished the kitchen in their basement! This is awesome because it means they can serve the hot lunch program to the elderly and to the street children right in their own church! Ministry can now flow from the heart of their community to the people around them rather than from a rented “cantina.” Now they are praying for a cook!

I will never forget Moldova, and I would ask you to also remember them this month. We continue to send funds to Bethany to provide food for elders who otherwise would not have much to eat at all. Donations are processed through CRISTA Senior Living Community and sent directly to Bethany Church in Chisinau, Moldova. If you want to help, you can send donations to Chaplain Dave Passey, CRISTA Senior Community, 19303 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98133.
(See Leona's prior posts here, here, here and here!)