I’m in a kind of reflective mood today, a bit of thinking about the past, and wondering how the kids of today will grow up. Will they be ready and able to rule our country and our Christian churches in the future?They will probably do a better job than the presidential candidates of today. At least I hope so. I often wonder if technology isn’t the culprit? I know regular face to face conversation just doesn’t exist anymore. At least at my home it doesn’t! The children and grandchildren come in and take out their smart phones and play with them until it’s time to go home. That probably isn’t completely true, but you get the picture. Everyone knows everything about everyone in the world, at least that’s what they say. I don’t know if anyone knows who THEY are though.

We have everything that runs like a clock, that is as long as we have electricity. What in the world would we do without it? And we hear that it is possible now for someone who doesn’t care particularly for America to take our electricity down very easily. What on earth would we do if we couldn’t charge our computers, tablets or smart phones?

In our little town in Northern Minnesota, we didn’t have electricity! So togetherness was a must! We sat around the table together doing our homework with only a kerosine lamp as our light. We used tablets regularly because that was the paper we wrote on. Wood was our only heat, although we did use coal some of the time. We didn’t have such a thing as radio or television but nearly every home had a piano, and we had more fun just standing around the piano singing the hit songs of that day. Hayrides were fun. We’d sing as we rode along. We had Christmas trees too, but they had candles on them. They were beautiful but you couldn’t let them burn very long! I remember the first time we had those big bulbs on our tree. I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

No, things were not easy. Washing clothes took all day. Gathering the wood or coal for our stoves was hard work for the whole family, and making our clothes with the old sewing machine on which you had to pump with your feet wasn’t easy either. But we did everything together and most of that we made fun.  I’m sure that our lifestyle made us the rough and tough folks that many called “The greatest generation”. We are raising a new generation with the high tech to help them out, and I am sure they will do okay because they are Americans too.

 

I woke up one morning a few days ago with a voice that said, “You are not done yet.” I wasn’t sure whether someone was talking to me, or if it was just in my mind. I asked my son if he had heard anything or did he call out something to me, but he said he hadn’t called anything. I thought it must be something in my mind but it didn’t matter because it was true!

I was looking around at the members of our “Marshallaires”, which is a singing group of about 50 voices all made up of us older men and women. None of them have given up. We practice two hours each Monday and put on a concert of the old songs and some hymns every Thursday at Nursing and Assisted Living Homes. Many of these singers are over 80 years old and even some 90 years old! (I fit into one of those over 90) We find ourselves singing to many people who are younger than we are. Of course some of them have disabilities which keep them there, but some of them have given up. This is sad. God has given all of us a certain amount of years on this earth and it is up to each of us to do what we can to help others.

I have seen some of the people in Nursing Homes who have done what they could do.Some of them are artists who paint beautiful pictures and some play the old songs for anyone who will listen. I am sure there are many other things those folks do. A smile to someone who needs just that or a prayer for the person who needs that is probably more than we who sing for them could ever do. But don’t ever think you are too old to do anything. You aren’t dead yet, and there is something you can do! Don’t even harbor a thought that you are too old now to do anything!