Friday's Thoughts

I have struggled with the idea that the worst thing we face is not death or suffering but diminishment. I'm pretty sure that's true and I'm looking for a way to help deal with it.

What are the tasks we could perform once that we cannot today? What are the goals we knew we could reach but now would not even attempt?

Are there skill sets we have lost? Are there memory lapses we find ourselves having to accept?

Diminishment can hit us at any age. A child who has to give up some of the better aspects of childhood understands the problem of diminishment. A teenager caught between the world of a child and the world of the adult lives in the age of what was but has not evolved into the time of what will be.

Older adults know it best. The diminishment of memory and the lessening of skills yield the sense that something is happening to us and we will not be what once we were but we are not certain of what we are now becoming.

How do we deal with diminishment? We try to discover the giftedness in the loss; the new life evolving from the old life that has left us; the development of new skills we didn't know we had after coming to terms with skills that have carried us so far.

Old baseball pitchers who were known for their fastball have to develop a new level of control with slower pitches. They become, sometimes, better pitchers in their senior years than their rookie season.

There is a seasoning that happens to us with diminishment. We evolve into the fullness of ourselves once we give up the person we were.

There is a gift for us in life and we have a chance to find it.

What are your primary areas of concern with regard to those things you can't do as well as you could? How are you dealing with them? What gift have you found in the losses?

If you have thoughts on this write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to have others read your thoughts click on the box below.

I look forward to hearing from you.


Charles