July | 2015 | Strut out of Your Dilemma

Some folk like change.

They camp out all night forming lines around an entire store in wait of the newest iPhone. You’ve got to be kidding! I still don’t know how to call home with the old one.

What’s with all these setting updates? They present their new idea of the week as if it’s the best piece of technology ever shared. Do they truthfully believe this makes me happy? I’m about to take a collection to send the Apple team on a long needed vacation—preferably to a place that doesn’t have cell phone towers.

Then we have the other devices sent to torment my brain. How did typing a story onto a sheet of white paper become such a complicated mess? Now I have so many buttons on this contraption they call a computer, I want to throw it into the next world. But I don’t. It would only be tossed back. All God needs is His finger and a slab of stone.

A few weeks ago my husband Robert purchased a new car. When the salesman began showing us how to operate the navigation system we nearly croaked. Smiling, the salesman handed us a guidebook as large as the car manual, boasting about all the things this system would do.

Robert said, “All I want is to listen to the radio.”

We still don’t know how to bring up a little music.

The television is another matter. If I happen to get it on, I don’t know how to turn it off. It is managed with three remote controls. I’m as confused today as I was the first day we purchased this television. A few days ago I attempted to watch a movie with my granddaughters. One hour later I finally found the right button.

Change is charging life past me. Don’t these inventors understand that all I want is simplicity? I don’t require new gadgets to fill up other parts of my day.

Who has time to read an entire manual in order to call for pizza? I’d rather use my grandmother’s black rotary phone.

Advanced technology isn’t a sweet ride on the merry-go-round, keeping us all smiles and waiting for the next trip around the world. It’s viciously controlling and has us up all night fixing freezes, air printer failures, and turtle-like speed. When we think we’ve won, we discover our labor has disappeared into the unknown world of cyberspace. Ridiculous.

Simplicity. Does anyone crave for a return to family dinners without a chicken clucking at regular intervals from a phone? How about lingering on the porch swing just to inhale the scent of rain? Yes! See me as a child of nature all wrapped in dew from early walks—those walks with God bringing me back to what truly matters.

And what does matter besides the racing of media moguls? Humanity. Face-to-face time. Looking one another eyeball-to-eyeball with barely a blink as we share our heartfelt convictions. To smell the scent of someone’s labors, whether sweet or raw sweat. Speaking to God heart-to-heart rather than before an audience on social media among people who really don’t care about our sermonizing and open prayers.

It’s all too rushed, too crowded, too overdone. I’m eager for a drink of sugar- saturated lemonade, a long swim in the cool creek, a moment to think about my day among the roses. I want to sing a song to Jesus from the depths of my soul without caring if it’s off-key.

In the meantime, I’ll hang onto this phone, this computer, this television. Perhaps someone will stagger pass in great need of my silly electronics, and I’ll offer them at a reduced price.

Aging isn’t what ads on television portray—retiring in this luxurious community filled with smiling folk who enjoy golf, tennis, fine dining, pleasant relationships, and lots of laughter. Those people must not have hip replacements, aching feet, chronic joint pain, failing eyesight, and thinning hair. In those commercials, they behave as if aging is the first dance in next year’s prom. I’m convinced they dropped their teeth down the laundry chute.

For that matter, who gets to retire when she still remembers how to drive to the local pharmacy, or while she still hears the moderator announce her winning card at Bingo? Before one retires she’s so exhausted she can’t get up for breakfast and merely wants to spend her life in pajamas.

Aging is a terrible blow to pride.

Who would have thought my contemporary rose countertops would one day resemble a salvaged relic from primitive settlers? How sad is that? I think my yellow drapes are lovely only to realize they are depressingly old-fashioned. This is what aging does for us, it labels us and all our treasures as signs of the past.

Our scarves become too short and skirts too long. The favorite sweater is the wrong color, shape and size. Our pumps are now pointed rather than rounded, the dress design ornate as opposed to simple, and the jewelry ALL wrong, just wrong. When we thought we had plenty to wear we don’t have a thing in our closet.

Looking in the mirror, my body isn’t proportioned as it once was. When I was a preferred size I never had money to buy Barbie clothes and now that I have the money I’ve lost the size. I told the clerk in the swimsuit section that I wanted a bathing suit for people like me. And she looked down at herself and said, “and me.” We both agreed that there wasn’t a swimsuit either one of us was fond of wearing. Aging.

Grand parenting is another stretch. We raise our children to the age where they have their own only to learn the doctors think we didn’t know what we were doing. We don’t know how to hold babies, burp babies, feed babies, or put them down to sleep. We might suffocate, choke, or kill them. We tremble whenever we’re near the little darlings for fear we might touch one and send it into a coma—too many germs floating around these days.

I think we’re eating a healthy meal only to discover it’s not organic. I jump on the organic track only to meet gluten-free. Forget it! Give me a desert loaded with everything rich and delicious.

Folk the world over fight aging. They take every known remedy from Vitamin B, C, D, and E or probably F, G, and H if they were available. Stretching, sucking, and botoxing become the norm where people who didn’t know where to start also don’t know where to stop. Before long one looks like a bee stung lipped, slanted-eyed clown wearing red boots and a mini skirt. Wow! I don’t know what to say.

Does it come to this with those who age? As fun as I’ve had with this blog, I don’t think aging in Christ is quite the same as aging in the world.

Christianity teaches us to revere our elders, respecting their wisdom. The world tells us older folk are outdated. The Bible instructs us to be modest in our apparel. The world instills sensual garments to promote sexuality. Christianity produces goodness, grace, purity, and knowledge while the world sells pride, sex, and materialism.

With aging comes wisdom. We have a choice. Our conclusion tells us to let the countertops remain because we like the color rose more than we embrace an unknown designer dictating society’s preferences. We adore our yellow drapes because we would rather have a happy home than a model house. We return to our closets and cast an indifferent glance to the current generation’s spend-a-holics for we’ve long since learned to use our resources for eternal purposes.

Whether big haired, little haired, tanned, or glowing white we don’t have to know all the rules, terms, twists, or lingo. Even though we walk with a limp, listen with a little less volume, and see only the large print, we bring a usefulness to the table far superior to the upstarts—a heart full of love, and an understanding as deep and wide as God allows.