When Are You Too Old to Die Young?  

Shalom, peace, and blessings, Adoniah, and thank-you for responding. I've decided that I'm definitely passed the point to be considered young if I were to die today. There is such a dichotomy of being middle aged. Are we still young? In our minds, but (cough, cough) in our bodies we are feeling the effects. I remember too much, and yet I have forgotten more than most remember. I remember a day when noone locked their doors, and we were free to come and go as we pleased. When there weren't cameras in all the stores. When we had the liberty to sit out by the lake and jam to tunes, getting as inebriated as we wanted. No more.

Now, it's all about health, political correctness, and diversity. Not that any of those things don't add up to an oxymoron, for I believe they do. Health requires an acceptance of discipline to making changes. Political correctness requires a uniformity of values. Diversity requires an acceptance of the values of others. All of it is based on being one great big global community, which I am as much for as any man, but at some point, we are going to fall short of achieving it. If we are not allowed to be free, but are watched like cattle, treated like cattle, and finally butchered and eaten like cattle, then we may conclude that we are in fact nothing more than cattle. By then, it will be much, much too late. And that these morons who are running things are not the goody-too-shoes we have perceived them to be.

Until that fateful day in which we finally wake up, may you be blessed, Dan

Eaten like cattle? Do you remember Soylent Green too?

Shalom

Adoniah, you keep reminding me of how old I am. :-} That's my way of saying Shaloam.

Dan

Good respone, but I doubt that it is out of nowhere when you are about to die. I think we have lots of warning, but for some reason, cannot pay heed to it. If the mind and the body were two separate things, I'd agree that how old you are is just a state of mind. I'm sorry that there are days when you are in severe pain.

Pain is a reminder of what we need to address. Touch a hot stove, for instance, and you will feel pain, and need to remove your hand ASAP. It's not always that easy. Pain usually comes after the fact of what we did to cause it. In almost every case it was an oversight. Something we missed along the way.

Here's to your health, and may you be blessed.

Dan

Miami, that's why I love your responses. This post is a bit dated, and surprise, surprise, surprise, as Gomer used to say. I don't know why I can't find any episodes of Gomer Pyle, but I hope that the production company releases them at some point...

M. Scott Peck, in his book, "Further Along the Road Less Traveled", dedicated an entire chapter to being able to deal with our ultimate demise. I will have to type this fascinating quote, and it is not for short-term thinkers, so bear with me:

"THE FEAR OF DEATH

Can that be right? That life signifies nothing - and even if it does, death wipes it's meaning away? Is it all for naught?

I do not believe so. Death is the opposite of what we think. Death is not a taker-away, but a giver of meaning.

More than anything else, my romance with death has given me a sense of the meaningfulness of life. Death is a manificent lover. If you are suffering from a sense of meaninglessness or ennui, there is nothing better I can suggest to you than that you strike up a serious relationship with the end of your existence. Like any great love, death is full of mystery and that's where much of the excitement comes from. Because as you struggle with the mystery of your death, you will discover the meaning of your life.

Of course, most people have very little taste for struggling with the idea of their death. They do not even want think about it. They want to exclude it from their awareness, thereby limiting their consciousness...

But you will find that people who are not so limited - like many of the great writers and thinkers - sooner or later are fascinated with death."

What prompted me to quote Dr. Peck was "she was ready to go". Sane people, that is, those who have done the work of being mentally and spirtually whole, think about when their life is going to end. And they deal with it. When they do expire, it is with a sense of peacefulness and perhaps even joy. At the same time that I'm dealing with my own ultimate demise, though I'm in almost perfect health, and have all the energy I need, I'm also facing the possibility of a new life. We'll see after the test. What I seek is an understanding of death, and what I'm liable to get is the reality of life. Should I dance and sing in a thunderstorm? Should I get in the car and drive down a wrong way street? Should I paint a house red instead of beige? Should I grab the burner on top of the stove until I lose these fabulous hands that produce such fabulous music and commercial projects?

I have all kinds of heros: George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Luther, Johannes Gutenberg, M. Scott Peck, Barry Gibbs, John Lennon, Dan Fogelberg, Jim Croce, Marvin Gaye, Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy, George S. Patton, and the list of those you know could go on and on. I'm hanging in there for Patrick Swayze. It just isn't right for such great ones as these to no longer be around. But, besides these that you know, there have been awesome women in my life that have been heros as well who'll you never know: Dorothy, Lessie, Jetta, and my own grandmother - Josephine. They took care of me in ways that didn't make the history books and weren't shown on TV. Oh, they fed me, they listened to my music, they would make sure I didn't act too rashly, and they kept my wife at the time from being too judgemental of my actions. They would do all that. But, first and foremost, they taught me the truth right out of the Bible. And they did it with such kindness and sweetness! Of course, my mother is my greatest hero. I'm a Mama's boy, and I know it very well.

The older I get, the more I watch as these whom I've admired and loved fade into the darkness and the mystery of death. But for the grace of God, go I. You know, I've known these awesome creatures of God who fought to keep their health, and died anyway. They've sought the greatest truths known to man, and they've passed on. They've loved exceedingly - bums, children, dogs, drunks, preachers, politicians, policemen, housewives, and murderers - all alike. And, still, God took them. He took them home. May they rest in peace for all eternity, until the resurrection.

In that Day, we will finally understand the mystery of death.

Be blessed, and stick around for a few more years. Dan

Of course, we both know very aged individuals that are very good - I could name many who are still alive. I'm related to most of them, as it turns out. :-} I've also known those who died young who most would not consider "good", though, as friends of mine, I didn't consider them to even have an "evil lifestyle" as you put it. It wasn't the drugs or the drinking, though the one I have in mind probably did both of those to some extent. It was a lack of an education, or the desire for one.

One night, John Allen and I were sitting in his house. This is so far out in the boonies of hilly, wooded Eastern Oklahoma, you wouldn't believe it. We were having a good time. We got to wrestling just for the heck of it. He told me after a while, "Dan, we've got to stop, 'cause I'm going to get mad." I appreciated that statement. Not that I couldn't have beat him to pulp, only that I didn't have to. He died a few years later while attempting to break into a semi because it was driven by a mixed-race couple. It was raining, and the truck was moving. He slipped when he tried to grab the door handle, and the truck rolled over him. The driver, who was black, spoke at his funeral and had nothing but good words to say about him. I played piano for the service. You sure learn some weird things in life.

Thanks for responding, and you don't be one of those who die young, Dan