Thursday, December 15, 2016

HONORING THE ELDERLY

HONORING THE ELDERLY Old. Old time. Old fashioned. Aged. Infirm. Passé . Old school . Elderly. Not much respect nor regard is given to old things in our popular culture, which covets new money, new markets, new music, new literature, videos, new anythings. New for the sake of new is sought. But the end of the line can come at any time, not just in old age. Ere life begins it also ends for never-borns. Living to be 3 score and ten just as living to be one hundred or older is contingent upon many factors lying beyond your simple wish to do so. So too is life; populated with many facts, many factors that lay beyond you, indeed, even your imagination, life is ever absorbing mystery, that beckons and "fecunds" our future. Without the old there is no new. Without the past, no present. No present no future. Old is basic to all else. So, do revere old people, old places, old things. They reflect you. Not simply because they are old, or exist, are the aged and infirm to be revered, honored, but because of their inestimable, intrinsic value as witnesses to, as participants in, the past; thus, framers of the future. Lastly, they all produced you. So respecting them is self-respect. "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the earth." What goes around, comes around to you on the wheel of life.