Shade Tree Wisdom 9/2/09

These early mornings are nice, cool, quiet, and a slight breeze, and few yellow boxes trundle around to shatter the quiet. As a matter of fact, yesterday morning I nearly turned back to get a light sweater, but braved it out and soon warmed from the exercise. I was thinking of life in general – that’s what I do during these morning walks – and wondering just why I continue with preparing and sending Shade Tree Wisdom on a more or less regular basis.

Several articles about web logs, or Blogs, helped a bit. One article stressed the value for older folks in keeping them occupied and informed. The other article said that also, but also pointed out the damage that people can do by mindless babblings, delighting in harming by their endless and misinformed information.

So why do I do it. Well, it is hard work, to prepare articles that inform, or maybe brighten your day. But it keeps me from rusticating. One said, “It keeps me out of a cave, watching TV and just sitting”.

It keeps me in touch, the writing helps me clarify my own thinking, and maybe I can just throw a bit of light into your life as well. St. Paul once wrote, “I long to see you, so that I may impart some spiritual gift to make you strong, that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each others faith.” Romans 1,12.

Can we, whose souls are lighted,
With wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted,
The lamp of life deny?

One Christian helps another, youth offers strength and exuberance, age offers wisdom and caution, and the spiritual traffic goes both ways to God’s glory and their own growth. Maybe it’s also the feeling that St. Peter writes about when he was growing older. “I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know I will soon put it aside". 2 Peter 1,13.

Some stanzas from Longfellow’s A Psalm Of Life, seem fitting here.

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

And it gives me a little chance to comment on the passing scene, often sad, but often just funny.
So as long as God gives me the health and the strength, I shall probably continue these offerings.
And here is a bit of wisdom you won’t hear anywhere else. One retiree says to the other, “What I don’t understand is how I got over the hill without ever being on top?”, or this, The most exact computer is the stomach, it never misses a calorie.

May God bless your day.

GPD 9/2/09