Despite my Mom disbelieving the fact, her second child turned 59 yesterday.Sorry, Mom. I myself have no trouble at all believing it.
For I am far removed from the kid who sat reading his Boy's Life magazine atop the wash line pole in this photo. My little sister Sherry sent it round to my Facebook wall. Thanks, Sis. (You realize that's from the little house over on Winona Street off Sheridan Boulevard which makes that pic the winter of '59-60. I would have been 8. Goodness me.)
Sure, there are times when I hear a song or see a picture and am momentarily transported back to the 1950s or 1960s, but those thoughts must soon report back in to the rapidly aging specimen that I now am. Every mile that Claire and I traverse in our new daily walking regimen reminds me of this inescapable reality all too clearly.
But to a Christian, one who relishes not only the fact of eternal life but the fact of eternal strength, health, mental clarity and moral virtue, the rigors of aging are not nearly as grievous as those who live merely for this world.
And I have another very helpful blessing with which to deal with the changes brought by advancing age -- that is the partnership of a lovely and loving wife. How I treasure her and the many years we have shared together. Romance, adventure, a splendid circle of friends, a tight-knit alliance in ministry, and the commonality of our Faith -- these are gifts from God for which I will be forever grateful.
Claire gave me a few Jeff Shaara books for my birthday which I'm looking forward to reading as soon as we get a bunch of other stuff done. Shaara has been a great find for our whole literary club -- we just finished reading the third in his outstanding WW II trilogy -- and so I'm looking forward to getting to these, one of which deals with the Mexican War and the others with the Revolutionary War. Before those, however, I must finish re-reading Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons by Walter Lord and Rafael Sabatini's Fortune's Fool (July's Notting Hill Napoleons selection) and then the next two selections for Vital Signs Ministries' Book It! series, Randy Alcorn's Money, Possessions and Eternity and Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.
Certainly the best present that I received on my birthday yesterday was the fact that the Bellevue abortion clinic was not open. Yes, many businesses were closed yesterday since the official holiday fell on a Sunday, but one can never tell about abortionists. They do, after all, engage in the dirtiest, most barbaric business possible. And if a person so boldly ignores the laws of the holy and omnipotent God, he is certainly not bothered by breaking mere social norms.
So, we went yesterday morning as usual. We were joined there by Allen and Cindy Nelson and by Larry Booth. We prayed together and spent an hour together on the sidewalk with our baby signs and pro-life banners.
The rest of the day involved a few errands, shopping for the equipment we need to launch our new ministry at the nursing home on Wednesday (more about that tomorrow), and preparing dinner for a few friends later in the day.
For dinner, we tweaked our sister-in-law's baked beans recipe a little, made potato salad and our famous Alamosa salad, stirred fresh dill from our herb garden into the cottage cheese, and I grilled burgers, brauts and hot dogs. The dessert was a yogurt cake from a nearby TCBY.
We enjoyed pleasant conversation throughout the evening and Allen helped us learn the ropes on the projector, screen and speakers for our project tomorrow. And, one more thing, we invited our guests to participate in one of our enduring Fourth of July traditions; namely, listening to the classic comic album, "Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America: The Early Years." Mark Morin then stopped by later but he missed the Freberg.
I think maybe a couple of our earlier guests wished they had too!
