The winter was severe. It was not only bone-chilling; it was enough to freeze your very eyes. It was Minneapolis (a very cold place): 20° below zero with a wind chill factor of negative 49°.
Church attendance was skimpy, not many decided to brave the frigid winds to make it to services. But, among those who did, was an 88-year old Goldie Schrieber, who was driven to church that morning after picking up Anna Hamilton, who had just turned 100 in October. They sat with their 94-year old friend, Fran Sparks, who met them for the 9:00 a.m. worship service.
Well, we have that kind of loyalty in this congregation that has kept this church alive and lively for 120 years in Wilmington. Some of you remember Chauncey Manning, our dear member and friend who lived to be an active 100.
And we have a number of members now who are in their 90s who get to church and all ages down to infancy.
We have a living tradition in this church family that brings us, year after year, to celebrate the principles and the unifying power of freedom in religion that keeps us together.
“Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot – Ours Will Still Be Hot,” as the song puts it. Oh, we know that life can be difficult, hard and nasty and sad in the extreme. We are not naïve.
Francis Chisholm has described what life can do to us and calls it the “Chisholm Effect.” These laws and their corollaries by the way are included in the Prentice-Hall book Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown.
First Law: He says that if anything can go wrong it will. Sounds like Murphy’s Law. Chisholm adds chilling corollaries: Corollary #1: If anything just can’t go wrong, it will anyway.
Second Law: When things are going well, something will go wrong. Corollary #1: When things just can’t get any worse, they will. Corollary #2: Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
Third Law: Purposes, as understood by the purposer, will be judged otherwise by others. Corollary #1: Procedures devised to implement the purpose won’t quite work. Corollary #2: If you do something which you are sure will meet with everybody’s approval, somebody won’t like it. Corollary #3: If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will!
Furthermore, I add, as we get older, long and old acquaintance doesn’t mean, necessarily, that we can keep track of things, whether a curse or sometimes a blessing; with age we forget.
With age we can get to the point where upon going upstairs, we cannot remember what we went up there for; or, finding ourselves at the top of the stairs, we look down and ask, “Did I just come up or was I about to descend?”
As age advances, one’s bones ache and fingers become butterfingers. You drop your toothbrush or cannot get all of the infernal buttons buttoned or unbuttoned. It’s a time when one spends more time looking for things than one spends using them after one (or one’s spouse, more likely) has found them.
Everyone is aging but we call it aging when we forget more and more names and times goes faster and faster until it passes so quickly a person feels that he or she is gathering speed while coasting downhill.
Nevertheless, Should auld acquaintance be forgot, ours can be still be hot. We have a religious duty, I say, as Unitarians to put our attitudes to work positively on making the most of life and relationships for the entire journey.
Some people let every ache or pain get them down. They are outraged or made helpless by every physical limitation. Not so, our own Unitarian John Quincy Adams, who, when he was turning four-score years, was limping a bit, leaning on his cane, and making his way down the street in his favorite city of Boston when a friend slapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Well, how’s John Quincy Adams this morning?”
The old Unitarian, well not old but approaching “middle-old” as it’s called today, Adams turned slowly, smiled and said, “Fine, sir, just fine!” This old tenement that John Quincy lives in is not so good, however. The underpinning is about to fall away. The thatch is all gone off the roof, and the windows are so dim John Quincy can hardly see out anymore.
“As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he said, “if before the winter’s over, he had to move out.” But as far as John Quincy Adams is concerned, he never was better, never was better!”
A little age (and those who are young can look forward to more of this), a little age ought to give us some perspective. And if we endure, imagine what we could be up to.
Take inspiration from Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Grey Panthers, or Teresa of Calcuttat, getting some years together now and serving in India, as Unitarian Margaret Barr did in the Khasi Hills of India for so very long.
Think of the creative energies still being spent by Unitarian poet Mary Sarton, and Sophia Fahs’ inspiration as a philosopher and religious educator, of all of us into her 90s.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, don’t give up!
Immanuel Kant wrote his most important philosophical treatises when he was 74. Goethe finished his greatest drama, Faust, when he was 80. Tennyson penned the best loved of all his short poems, “Crossing the Bar,” when he was 83.
Verdi composed that superb oratorio—the one with a tenor note so high, high above high C, that when I used to listen to Jussi Bjorling sing it, and I still do on the recording, I think I am going to transcend the earth itself by musical transport. The oratorio, “Stabat Mayer,” he wrote when he was 85.
Michelangelo did his best work at 87. Again it was a Unitarian on our own shores, Justice Holmes, who was still writing brilliant legal opinions when he was 90 years old.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, “ours,” can still be cooking. Our attitudes make a great deal of difference, at whatever age, even though we be frail or handicapped or severely challenged by life.
What we know now is that most of us, as we slowly get a little older and a little older, will become what we already were, but more so.
We will grow to be in the future even more “like we are” right now. That ought to teach us something. To pay attention! Pay attention to what we are like, what we think, and what we do. How we trust others. How we treat them, and ourselves…pay attention, now!
Because, we are going to become more that way, chances are, and it will pay, right now, to be paying attention to what we are likely to become more of. The bright hopeful, but at the same time, serene souls are likely to go on being that way; bright, hopeful, and serene, but more so.
The poor in spirit, unless that is a temporary aberration or unless they consciously begin to turn around, will likely get poorer in spirit. The rich in maturity and wisdom will get richer.
Pay attention! Of course, we should not get rigid about this. We should forgive each other and ourselves some lapses. Do you remember the New Year’s resolutions you made for 1986? I don’t. It’s doubtful we kept them all (or perhaps any, for long). But New Years present new chances.
You will make your own list—but let me tickle your imagination into working on the ones you might keep for awhile by mentioning some of the ones I’ve been toying with for 1987. By January 1, I shall get serious about them! This time, though, I will try a different approach: resolutions for one day at a time. On this day, and maybe all the way to New Years, (but each day, one date at a time) I hope to accomplish something that is sufficient for that day alone.
So, I resolve, just for today, mind you, that I’m going to lose weight. Don’t laugh! Now, my colleague, Roy Phillips, called me from St. Paul last month and said, “Bob, I have to lose 29 pounds by January 15th or I’m going to be terribly embarrassed.” I said, “You’ve gone public!” “Yes,” he answered, “I told the congregation that I was going on a diet and had sworn to lose this weight and now I have to.” Dumb!
Well, my resolution is to lose weight just today. Then tomorrow I’ll look at the same resolution again. But one day is all I can handle. It would weigh me down to think that I had to pay attention to calories for the rest of my life.
And today only, I will take what comes. I know it goes better when I can “accept the world,” and myself too, the way we are rather than as I should like the world, and myself, to think we are. Take it as it is, today, but take it.
And, I’m going to be healthy today; that is, do healthy things! Exercise, walk, sleep enough, and take care of the body, day after day, but today’s enough for now.
I’m determined to—no, that’s not right—I’m warming up to leaning over into greater kindness today. I should like to think I’m generally a kind enough person, and I know nobody can buck for the Mr. or Mrs. Kindness Award. That’s the way to burn out on an arrogance that masquerades as sweet loveableness. No, let me be compassionate without encouraging dependence. It is the way to peace, up-close compassion, a mixture of kindness, self-respect, and encouragement to independence. If peace on earth begins up close, let me be kinder.
I’m working on a resolution of doing fewer things I really do not want to do because they don’t do me any good. In fact, they are a pain in the esophagus! So I’m going to do more of what I want to do today! It’ll be better for me and, who knows, probably better for the other people around me too.
Today, and get this, I’m gonna take one thing out of the “gonna” barrel. I preached about the gonna barrel once—it’s the barrel into which we put things we’re “gonna do” some day, but the barrel gets fuller and fuller and heavier and heavier as we put off doing what we were sometime gonna get around to doing!
So today I resolve to take just one thing out of the gonna barrel—and do it. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’m “gonna.”
Today, I’m going to tell the truth! The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me. I want to think that I am a truthful person, too. In fact, on occasion, that is truer than it should be because I find myself saying something for the sake of utter accuracy that is irrelevant at best or hurts somebody at worst. On the other hand, I leave out some real and true opinions that are better spoken because if they were spoken, misunderstandings would not arise as often.
So, today, by golly, I’m going to try—no—I intend fully to, no, I will tell the truth about anything that matters honestly, honest!
And, today only, then maybe tomorrow and tomorrow, but today, I’m going to drag my declarations and doings out of the doldrums and be a more “up” person, get happier, get away from a constitutional tendency to be uncheerupable! You can have an influence on your own cheerfulness and by je-ho-sa-fat! I’m going to do it—today!
Oh, and I’m going to keep reading a little (‘cause that’s my duty, but I also like it).
And one more resolution…
Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot? I shall warm it up again, reach out to one person, one today. One person I have been out of touch with, one person all but forgotten, and reestablish communication and caring, some kind of ongoing relationship.
Well, that’s enough of a list for now, enough, by gosh, for just one day at a time (after all).
Before I shop, though, I want to share two things with you. One is Biblical, one is not. The first is not.
Last summer in Southwest Harbor, Maine, I wandered through the town one day looking in the windows of the two grocery stores, the post office, the hardware store, the Yankee Gift Shop, and upon the road to the bicycle shop.
In the last window was a statement in simple calligraphy, something from the pen of Samuel Ullman. It is a gift of August 11th to December 28th.
“Youth is not a time of life. It is a state of mind. Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
“Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair—these are the long, long “years” that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether 70 or 16, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars, and the star-like things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what’s next, and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith,
As old as your doubt;
As young as your self-confidence,
As old as your fear;
As young as your hope,
As old…
As your despair.
And now this one is from the Bible. It is a command. It is an offer we must not refuse!
In the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy we read this: “The command that I am giving you today is not too difficult or beyond your reach. It is not up in the sky.”
“You do not want to ask, ‘Who will go up and bring it down for us, so that we can hear it and obey it?’”
“Nor is it on the other side of the ocean. You do not have to ask, ‘Who will go across the ocean, and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and obey it?’”
“No, it is here with you.”
“You know it. You can quote it. So why don’t you do it? It is this: Today I set before you life and death.”
Choose Life! Choose Life!
Choose Life.
Ride your bike.
Run your run.
Row your rowing machine,
be kind, and be loving.
Do something!
No. Don’t just do something.
Sit there and think about it, think!
And then when you are ready,
this very day—then—do something.
And should auld acquaintance be slipping into disuse
or misuse,
Take it out and warm it over.
Make it do,
And use it up.
That’s what a life is for. Therefore, choose life! Let us pray.
© Robert Mabry Doss