A Soulful Journey

Once there was a great lover of nature, who had a beautiful garden filled with the lovely flowers of the world. He was a kind soul, and always gave flowers to the children, supply them for parties, and all sorts of occasions. One summer, the doctor ordered him to spend his vacation in the country as his health was declining.   When he returned, the garden was neglected. The flowers were all but gone. In a few corners there were small white roses still blooming. He gazed at them thoughtfully.   One morning a flower was missing, and he began to weep. “Tell me grandfather, why do you cry?  I remember when, in the spring you would put flowers and give them to everyone now you make a fuss over one little flower.”   “Yes, little one, there’s a difference between then and now. The bright sun and the fruitful earth would bring masses of flowers then. One flower would wither and 10 more would take its place. Today the beautiful garden is gone. So when one flower disappea...

An old banker lay very ill in bed, when a friend came to visit him. 'Well,' said the latter, 'how are you?' 'How should I be?  I'm dying.' 'Nonsense.  How old are you?' 'I'm seventy seven already.' 'With God's help you'll live to be ninety.' 'If He can have me at 77, why should he take me at 90?' -Friday Nite Book Aways choose life.  Always.  

Raba said: (Length of) life, children and sustenance depend not on merit but (rather on) mazal.  For (take) Rabbah and R. Hisda.  Both were saintly rabbis; one master prayed for rain and it came, the other master prayed for rain and it came.  R. Hisda lived to the age of ninety-two.  Rabbah (only) lived to the age of forty.  In R. Hisda’s house there were held sixty marriage feasts, at Rabbah’s house there were sixty bereavements.  At R. Hisda’s house there was the purest wheaten bread for dogs and it went to waste.  At Rabbah’s house there was barley bread for human beings and that is not to be had.   Moed Katan 28a  

When I was young, I admired clever people. As I grew old, I came to admire kind people. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, ז”ל

An old Jewish woman just turned ninety, became ill and called the doctor.  he examined her carefully and looked doubtful. “Can you cure me, doctor?” the old woman asked hopefully. “Dear Granny,” said the doctor soothingly.  “You know what happens when one gets older.  All sorts of ailments begin to happen.  After all, a doctor is not a miracle man.  He cannot make an old woman younger." “Who’s asked you to make me younger, doctor?”  protested the old woman, irritably.  "What I want is to grow older!”   Listen. Only then speak.

Charles Thierry was born in 1850 and practiced his silversmith trade in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until the age of 93.  Every day he took long, vigorous walks in the country, a habit that he kept up after his retirement.  At the age of 103 he contracted influenza and had a stormy convalescence.  He  was then seen by Dr. Paul Dudley White, who urged him to resume his daily walks, regardless of the weather.  Thierry recovered but later died of pneumonia at 108 years of age, largely due to his own negligence.  -Norman Cousins Get up and get out.  Enjoy God's many gifts that are all around you.

 "The Tablets and the broken Tablets were both placed in the holy Ark."  - Talmud, brachot 8b This is a powerful lesson about accepting everyone as a part of our community- those who are whole and those who are broken all have a place with God and us. 

Scientists tell us that the human mind can store as many as 600 memories a second in a lifetime of 75 years with the slightest strain.  That works out to 1,419,120,000,000 memories!  When memories becomes flabby, lack of mental exercise (more than advancing years) is usually the reason.  See Psalm 103:2

This is from the eulogy of Ira Berkow, sports editor of the The New York Times for Cookie Lavagetto, from many years back: “Cookie Lavagetto, who died at age 77 in his sleep Friday morning at his home in Orinda, California, was famous for one thing.  He was the Brooklyn Dodger who struck a celebrated pinch-hit in the 1947 World Series.  Thoughts of Lavagetto the ballplayer led to the notion….that great moments don’t last as long as they used to.” “The reason I decided at first, was me.  The older  I became, the quicker life goes.     More events are stuffed into a shrinking time frame.     In the grade-school years, a summer vacation lasted forever.     Now a summer zips by nearly like a weekend…” “There are still a lot of great achievements going on all over the place these days…but somehow they fail to stick in the brain as they once did.  Who won Wimbledon last year?  Who’d they beat?...The re...

When Pablo Casals was quite aged, feeble and frail, he arose every morning barely able to take single halting steps.  His young wife had to assist him as an aide.  After his morning ritual of paying Bach, he was like a new man, rejuvenated and like a man having shed twenty years from his life.  - told by Norman Cousins Follow your dreams and loves.  Practice the gifts with which God has endowed you.  Use them often and well and joy will be yours.

"Becoming a public figure was not what Meryl Streep bargained for when she started performing in her high school's musicals in Bernardsville, NJ.  Even back then, it was always the quiet life that agreed with her best. "When I was in high school and riding in a car with a a boy who was driving real fast, there was never an ounce of enjoyment of the thrill," she says, shaking her hard.  "Part of it is that I've always felt older about 40. And I did have this moment when I turned 40 that felt like my clothes finally fit.  I didn't have to be anything other than myself."  - Entertainment Weekly All our lives we have one sacred task, to be ome what God knows we must become.

 An Indian once compared love with a bowl of soup and marriage with a hot plate on a stove and said, “You Westerners put a hot bowl on a cold plate and it grows cool slowly.  We put a cold bowl on a hot plate and it warms up slowly.”  - Walter Trobisch What is important in love is to grow it, nourish it and let it warm you as you age.

The black hair saw a gray hair. "Traitor!" He shouted at the other. "We were all born black and intend on staying that way. However, you change. You put our whole head to shame." "How ignorant you are, my friend," the gray hair smiled.  "That which happened to me will happen to you. It occurred a little earlier in my case but do not fret, you too will turn gray." Time brings age and maturity.  Do not be afraid to confront that which is inevitable.

Jim Anderson of the LA Times reported about Margaret, 71 years old. One day her son came home late one night and burst into the house without knocking. He saw on the couch Margaret with her boyfriend in a compromising position. The son was horrified. “That’s it!” he screamed.  That's the end. He slammed the door as he left. Margaret asked, “Did I do wrong?” The best things in life, Margaret, go on forever. Every human being requires conversation and friendship. But why do we assume that the needs of older people stop there? The body may creek a little but there is no atherosclerosis of emotions.  While older people literally hunger for caring, affection, and physical touch just like anybody, adult children and other family members children provide anything more then starvation rations: an occasional kiss. We know that sex is perfectly feasible at any age given good health.   But even when this does not seem appropriate for various ...

Working the late shift at the supermarket, I had to fight the urge to change the slow music drifting through the loudspeaker. It was past midnight, and the music was putting me to sleep. I reached for the dial, but stopped when I saw them. An elderly couple, with the entire supermarket to themselves, were dancing down the frozen food aisle. They floated past the peas and corn, eyes fixed on each other. At the end of the lane, he dipped her.  A tear ran down her cheek. Then she smiled and mouthed the words, “I love you.” It was a great day to be on the night shift.    –David Yax I wish you this kind of love.

The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from what she daily tears of sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future that is in store for him?   “No, thank you,” he will think.  “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and...

"At age 50 every man has the face he deserves." -George Orwell How we have lived is written clearly there.

Long ago I heard the story of "Howard" who was given the task on introducing a speaker to a large audience.  Howard gave the speaker his time limitation and then added, "I'm a dying man.  Nothing will embarrass me, so if you go over four minutes I welcome up and grab you by the ear and drag you off the podium." When all is well and youthful blood courses our veins time is irrelevant.  As we grow older and the visage if the Angel of Death, Malekh Ha-Mavet, comes close time is most precious.  Maybe we can learn this lesson earlier in life.....  

An 85-year-old woman from Kentucky was interviewed.  She was asked what had she learned from life.  She answered, “If I had to do it over, if I had my life to live over, I would dare make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would be sillier.  I would take fewer things seriously... I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles than imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who lived seriously and sanely day after day, hour after hour.  I’ve been one of those persons who never went anywhere without thermometer, a hot water bottle, raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I’d travel lighter."

This story is told about a man who had reached the ripe old age of 100 years. On his birthday reporters came to interview him.  One of them asked, “To what do you attribute your old age?”  He replied, “I breathe fresh air, take plenty of rest, and do not eat too much. I live at careful life.” The reporter said, “I had an uncle who did all these things and he died when he was only 50 years old.” The old man retorted, “The trouble with your uncle was that he did not keep it up long enough!” We must always take good care of ourselves but in the final analysis our fate is in God’s hands.