One of the blessings of retirement is travel. Oftentimes we hold back during our working years thinking, “I’ll just wait ‘til I retire--then my bags will be packed.” I recently traveled on a tour of Japan, an intriguing country long on our bucket list of international destinations. More on that in a moment. But suffice it to say that travel helps us learn, explore, and (hopefully) change our perspective. All of these are preconditions to release our creative juices, even as we age.
At the age of 40, Karen, a single mother of two, was diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to her liver. It was a devastating diagnosis. As her parish nurse, I was..
My twenty-three-year-old grandson is in a coma. Six months ago, he was struck by an automobile near his university. Since then, he has been in five hospitals in three..
Shannon was our first grandchild, and she entered this world early, spending her first month in an intensive care nursery for premature infants. Tiny and rosy-red from..
At only four years old my son has recently learned to say, “that’s not fair!” It must be his new favorite phrase because he says it quite often. When I say that it is..
When our son was about 3 1/2 years old and our daughter 8 months, Dave was preparing dinner in the kitchen. He had placed Hannah in the swing chair that she loved. That..
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t grow a decent beard. I was in my 20’s and entered my senior year of seminary hoping to land my first job as a pastor. A friend offered to..
There is a phrase used by leaders in the effort to overcome ageism: Aging isn’t a problem. Ageism is.
By the time this blog is published, I will be 89 years old. For at least 30 years I’ve experienced “isms,” although I didn’t know what to call them.
It was summer, 2023, and life was good and the living was “easy”. And into that wonderful and special time came an invitation to my fourth grandchild’s wedding and a..
