I always stop and look whenever I see a picture of a Victorian lady sitting in a rose garden. She is wearing a dress which is ruffled and carrying an umbrella which is also ruffled. I don’t know why but it always brings peace to me. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t look like she is bothered by the many things we face today. All she is interested in is keeping the sun away from her face and her thoughts on the roses all around her. She is smart you know, filtering the sun off her face with the fancy umbrella. We use sun lotion which is not nearly so romantic.

The first thing we should filter out is our mail. It might be a good idea if we put a garbage pail near our mail box. Maybe all the junk we get in the mail is the reason the postal service is still around! At least, it keeps them in business. My son always tells me I should throw most of my mail away except the bills. He is right, you know. The other day I got a letter from Publishers Clearing house telling me I had won $7000 a week for life and that I would be receiving it in two days! I found out that Publishers Clearing House never sends letters to winners and that the $7000 wouldn’t be given out until November 29th. I did receive a letter in two days but all it told me was that I had to purchase some of the items they had listed and I would be eligible to receive the money. I don’t know how they get by with calling themselves Publishers Clearing House, but I guess I’ll leave that up to them.

Another thing we should filter out is television. Last night I was watching The Voice and the commercials were terrible. Some were of shows that would be coming up. These had scenes in them that were downright scary and some were of movies that would be soon on our screens. These were so violent that I would think no one would ever pay money to see. And Children were watching The Voice too! I found a way I could filter out those commercials. I just closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears!

However there are other things that should be filtered out on television. Of course we should watch the news. We should know what is going on in our government. How else would we know who to elect to run things. We don’t need to know everything about every killing in the world, do we? Sometimes we hear of a murder for days. They go on and on talking about it. I suppose they need to fill up the time, but why not fill it with good news. There is a lot of it going on but we don’t hear about that.

Many of the things we look at, read or listen to or even what we say or think needs to be filtered. Unfortunately the sights and sounds that surround us leave us stressed, anxious and overwhelmed. We must filter them if we want peace and joy to invade the spaces that we have allowed inside. We will find our lives will be more relaxed as peace and joy take over. Who knows, maybe we’ll have time to read God’s letter once in awhile

Yesterday I joined The Marshallairs, a singing group in our city. I didn’t know what to expect nor did I know if I would really like to join. I found everybody was a senior citizen, but I knew about that. What was really nice was that everyone seemed to enjoy singing and many of them had a lot of musical knowledge. There were people there that were dancers, singers, artists, writers, all kind of put on the shelf because of their age!

It seems that folks still think of 65 as the time to retire, sit in their rocking chairs and wait for death. These people are not going to do that and most of them were well past age 65! The younger folks around us seem to think we are “over the hill”, and our talents are not needed anymore. It’s sad really, because all of the singers in The Marshallaires have much to give and should be allowed to use the talents they have.

When I think that my children are reaching the age of 65, I wonder. I know they have much to give the world. Will they retire? I hope they will keep on keeping on. We are living much longer now than people did in past generations. I think I would go for a much later date than 65 as the age to retire. In fact I don’t think we should have a retirement age.

Moses took the children of Israel out of Egypt when he was 80 years old. I read about him complaining about the bad things the children of Israel did and that he didn’t feel he was capable in speaking, but I never read that he thought he was too old to do the work God wanted him to do. I don’t think we should have the word “retire” in our vocabulary either. God has given each of us so many days to live. We have no idea how long we are to live, but we should keep doing the things we are capable of doing until that day he calls us. The Marshallaires feel that way. How about you?