Something is Missing

Sorry for the lack of posts for two weeks.  I have been on a slow road trip from the farmlands of Minnesota to the beaches of Oregon. 

I planned to think deeply about issues of church, aging and well-being as I traveled with my beautiful wife of 55 years.  But I didn’t.  My focus was on the visual poetry of grasslands, both green and brown, hawks looking for lunch, the music of our life on our car's cassette player -- and the incredible traffic around the big cities of Salt Lake City, Sacramento, San Francisco and Portland. 

And my mind was also on cancer and a 70^th  birthday in California, and the importance of friends knit together long before confronting contemporary maladies. 

When I tried to think about this blog on mattering as we age and the significance of church in the lives of people, my mind couldn’t compete with those everyday intrusions of the beauty of our country and the trauma of illness. 

Now that I am settled for awhile again, I think back anew over the months of posts on the topic of aging and the church. 

Something is missing; something that holds us back from being on the same page as we explore together the importance of the community of “our church” to “our well-being” and the “health and happiness of our friends and acquaintances”.  

I need to think about a way for all of us to notice what is right before us every day.  Then we can “talk” together in conversations that are open and honest about the role of the church for our hope, grace, healing and empowerment – as we age.