Due to a combination of a big family wedding in Boston, gall stones and surgery for them, and my moving to Hot Springs, Arkansas, there will a hiatus in blogs for awhile. Pray for me.
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Here is a short blog - all I could come up with under the tense circumstances. A cute way to discourage naggers that some of my friends use against me is that when I give them unwanted advice or instructions they reply: "Thank you, Mom!" I notice in my own thinking and also that of other parents of adult children that we sometimes sound as if our children were our products and their shortcomings or worse are therefore a sign that we failed in making a perfect product.   But that is a flawed idea. Surely children are free-will creatures of God who make their own good and bad decisions. It is a form of pride to attribute to ourselves all their virtues and negatively to blame ourselves totally for all their faults.
For those of you who pray for my daughter, Carla, who has endured 5 years of lymphoma with hardly a let up in pain in spite of pain-killers, they now say it has spread and she will return to hospice soon. This image was given to me, to think of all of us needing to be reborn out of Mary’s womb. Please keep up the prayers. They are gratefully received by all of us. Years ago I gave a Catholic lecture tour of parts of Australia.  In Sydney I noticed something I had not seen before. Every 5 blocks or so would be a house with a big sign on it SAFE HOUSE. This was so that kids walking around could run in if they were being followed by some dangerous person!   Thinking about the problems in our Church, this image came to mind, I think from Jesus, that we, the faithful Catholics are sort of “safe houses” for others as we undergo the Tribulation and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. To be a sort of safe house in the tribulation and the Immaculate Heart OR MARY’S IMMACULATE HEART AS OUR SAFE HOUSE. When I first came to live here in Corpus Christi, living so much alone after being in the dorm of Holy Apostles College and Seminary, I had the grace of conversations throughout the day and, sometimes, in the night with Jesus. Then this began to taper off. I asked Jesus if there was a reason. He seemed to reply: I do not talk to you so much because I want to bring you to wordless union with Me – not even too many thoughts in your mind. Sing, as you will in heaven. Here is the introduction to a new book I am working on with Al Hughes – pray for it, please, even if you are not yet 80 or beyond. What Now? A Pilgrim’s Roadmap for 80 Year-old’s and Beyond by Ronda Chervin, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy and Albert Hughes, Lt Colonel United States Air Force Pastoral Counselor and Spiritual Director copyright, Chervin May, 2018 (for dedication page: for my twin-sister, Carla, with love, Ronda for Shannon, Katie and Martha with love, Al) Contents Introduction Sorting out one’s Life What were my dreams? Where did I succeed? Where did I fail? What now? New Crosses: Pain and fear of worse pain and/or total disability Left behind by loved persons dying first Being ignored by younger adults Anxiety about living situations now and later Limitations of 80 Year-old’s Capabilities of 80 Year-old’s God’s Call Now Am I Ready for the Last Journey? The Journey Home Introduction by Ronda “Our span is seventy years, or eighty for those who are strong.” (Psalm 90 The purpose of this roadmap is to provide Christian insight and inspiration to those 80 years or older. Until I reached the age of 80, I thought that there was no need for such insight and inspiration at such a time in life. I pictured myself a shut-in living in a bed, heavily sedated with pain-killers, but with my soul soaring into eternity! However, now at 81, happening to know still highly functioning 90 year-old’s, I realize it isn’t quite so simple. What now? A Pilgrim’s Roadmap for 80 Year-old and Beyond began, really, when I started inserting insights and inspirations into my Blog (seegoodbooksmedia.com for RondaView). Develop the themes into a book? Well, I did write just such a book when I was 60 years old, entitled Meeting Christ in the Joys and Sufferings of Aging. But 60 is nothing like 80! Talking about the idea of such a book with Al Hughes, he came up with a title and chapters immediately. “Why don’t you write it with me?” I begged. After all, you are pushing 80, too!” We had recently finished writing 2 books together: Escaping Anxiety along the Road to Spiritual Joy and Simple Holiness: A Six Week Walk on the Mountain of God, both published by Enroute Books and Media. He said, “Yes.” As I begin writing What Now? A Pilgrim’s Roadmap for 80 Year-old’s, here is my life-situation. I am alone, a widow dedicated to Christ, residing in a beautiful apartment on the Bay of Corpus Christi, Texas. Retired! This is after 8 years at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut, where I taught philosophy and saw a hundred people every day at the 3 meals provided in the cafeteria. I retired just before my 80th birthday. I would surely, finally, become a true contemplative and even, if God so willed, a Catholic mystic, levitating to the ceiling of the Church. Instead, after a year and a half of living alone, even though Jesus speaks to me in my heart, I find myself lonely and restless. “Me, myself, and I” are not my favorite human company! Every day I go to Holy Mass, spend an hour in silent prayer, love to recite the rosary, read the Liturgy of the Hours, and chat on my family’s facebook. Some days of each week I volunteer at the parish office, teach a few small groups, visit with my spiritual director, Al Hughes, and other friends. But still there are hours and hours of time with nothing to do! Why not work on one final book? Before going on to Al’s introduction, I think it would be good for me to call to mind some of the good “models” I have of 80 year-old’s among my family and friends. My father, who died in his late 80’s, was still doing writing up to the last 5 years of his life. Ralph De Sola was the author of many books, the most important of which was the standard Abbreviations Dictionary, updated every few years, available in public libraries. He owned a beautiful house in San Diego, California, with Spanish-American decor and large maps and pictures on the walls. Since he hating seeing relatives and friends fighting over legacies after people’s deaths, he devised this helpful custom. For years before his death, when anyone came to visit he asked them which of the pictures, furniture, and books they wanted the most. Then he appended to these selections the name of the person they would be given to after his death by his executor. It worked. No fights. When my mother, Helen Winner De Sola, who was separated from my father in their 50’s, turned 80 she had already made a transition from apartment living to a beautiful assisted living apartment building overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But, then, due to greater dementia, she moved into a convalescent home, and finally to a room in our house with a live-in attendant. Looking back, I realize she is a model for me of prudence in that she saved enough money from various editing jobs and social security to be able to live in such lovely surroundings at the end of her life. She was also a model of humor and courage. Examples of humor: in the hospital after colon cancer surgery, I came to visit her and tremulously asked her how she felt. “Well, the nurses aren’t very interesting to talk to!” she remarked, characteristic of her being such a conversationalist all her life. Another I will never forget is my mother in a wheel chair in our living room bumping into the stroller of my grand-daughter. “How do you like your first grand-daughter?” I asked her. “We have a lot in common. We’re both bored to death here!” But the most wonderful part was the last months of her life when she was on a feeding tube. The Medicare group that sent out attendants chose for her a Philippino nurse who had trained under Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s Sisters. Instead of focusing on my mother’s hygienic needs, she sat by her side all day leading her in childish charismatic songs of a type that before this my mother would have scorned as sentimental drivel. So, I would find them clapping their hands and singing: “Now we’re going to go to our Father’s house where’s there’s joy, joy, joy!” The aspect of my mother’s ‘80’s that impresses me the most is that even in the last year one could still exhibit the good personality traits that were always there, such as prudence and humor. And, that God could find some absolutely unpredictable way to reach us even on our death-beds. ______________________________ I like to think of the account my old friend, Alice Von Hildebrand, gives of the deathbed of her famous husband, Dietrich Von Hildebrand. “As he lay dying he prayed over and over again, “Christ, bid me come unto Thee!” It seemed to me so touching that this renowned Catholic philosopher, at the end had only one wish, not to enunciate an unforgettable truth, but to beg our personal Savior to come to him. My god-mother, Leni Schwarz, was a loving, very helping woman, but also tense and easily upset when frustrated. It was a marvel to me to hear that when she was finally in a convalescent home with no duties, she became radiantly peaceful. Myself a loving but also very tense, easily irritated woman, I thought that, possibly, I would become finally peaceful when I had nothing to do but pray and praise. _________________________ Another 80 year old: when I was in my late ‘60’s, after Holy Mass friends used to bring me sometimes to visit this old, old, woman who lived on the same street as the Church. Although pretty much a shut-in, she was always beaming with joy. “She has a grateful heart,” were the words a friend used to explain it! I find that any day I devote to thanksgiving for every good thing in my life, all the way down to toilet paper, is a day that is joyful. _____________________ When I was a new convert and age 23, I was brought to see an old dying holy woman. Her name was Marguerite Solbrig. She was the founder of a lay community. I only saw her for 10 minutes. There was a bed with covers and all I could see was the face of this woman. Her large brown eyes were glowing with mingled suffering and joy as she looked at me with love. I will never forget that look. Now, at an age closer to hers, I am thinking: We shouldn’t think that our life on earth is over if we can’t do our usual work in the world or in the Church. With one look of love, if we truly live in the depth of the heart of Jesus, we could do something intensely meaningful for another person.  
One of the priests at a Mass I attend regularly inveighed against the decision in our diocese to change the day of the Ascension to the Sunday. “40 days is 40 days.” Why should it be changed just because so many of our people find a Thursday inconvenient?
I thought of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where quite a number of the menfolk take the 1 car off for an hour and a half ONE WAY commute to work. How difficult would it be to go to Mass himself or the family to go on a Thursday or Wednesday evening if his job site couldn’t spare him? These were the type of reasons I thought it was good to let the Bishop decide about scheduling certain feast days, so that some Catholics wouldn’t have to be in sin for not coming when it would be so difficult. A mentor of mine, however, suggested the Church could announce that Catholics can be dispensed for such big reasons, rather than tamper with the sacred calendar which reminds us that eternity is more important than our schedules. I wondered how many Catholics would ever think there were dispensations, vs. just deciding themselves and then feeling guilty or just giving up on Confession when they thought a Church obligation was unreasonable? So, if you happen to be a Church minister concerned about this issue in a diocese where the Feast Day is on a weekday, maybe spread the idea of dispensations?
Funny dialogue:
I live right by the Bay in Corpus Christi and our apartment complex has its own fishing pier. An advantage of being an 81 year old “safe” woman is that you can have cool conversations with men without seeming “frisky.” I was chatting with a 60 year old fisherman in a desultory way. But since he couldn’t avoid noticing my large Benedictine crucifix I asked him if he was a Catholic. “I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God,” he replied smiling. 
“Oh, I can prove the existence of God if you like.”
“No, I don’t.” So when we got around to chatting about our jobs – he is a surveyor – I said: “Oh, I was a university professor.” “What did you teach?” “Philosophy – like proofs for God’s existence.” “What? People get paid to prove God’s existence????” 
I am re-reading a book of Kierkegaard I last read 50 years ago. It is a classic called, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. In a fascinating analysis, this Danish Lutheran existentialist of the 19th century, provides a version, really, of Catholic spirituality of holiness.
He calls the opposite of striving for holiness, double-mindedness. He means any excuses, paltry or elaborate, that Christians give for straddling Christianity and worldliness. He includes such surprises as wanting to follow only God’s will, but on condition that I be a leader! God forbid, I be, instead, a weak, sick invalid in a bed all my life!!! If you have “interiorized” lots of Catholic spiritual wisdom, you can jolt your conscience by reading this famous book!
I sometimes find it helpful when praying formal prayers such as Liturgy of the Hours, to insert myself and God the Father, personally into the prayer the prayer as in where it says God, to put in “You, God,” or where it says “God, help your sons and daughters,” to put in “God help me, your daughter.” Not, of course, to want to alter the liturgy of the hours, but only in private prayer to make it more pointed.
I have dreamed of an assisted living community of like-minded Catholics, ever since the death of my husband in 1993. Sometimes God answers our prayers virtually vs. literally. As I gaze at the daily communicants in our small parish, most of whom are elderly and, some, assisted in getting rides to the Church, I often think “Here is your assisted living community, Ronda!” Over time there is a spiritual bond between the “dailies” even if we don’t see one another in our homes. 
“The elephant in the living room” is a phrase used in 12 step to describe how there might be someone in the family with a terrible addiction, but no one talks about it.
A kind of new elephant in the living room of the Church is the crisis going on where because Catholics have so many different understandings of it, some think it better never to talk about it. Since, sometimes, people ask me what I think about it, I thought that laying out a spectrum of different viewpoints could be helpful. Here is a such a Spectrum as I see it. The numbers move from those who think there is no crisis, to the maximum amount of crisis. 1. A VIEW I DON’T HOLD: Many teachings in the area of faith are symbolic rather than literal such as the Resurrection of Christ was not his literal body but meant that after his death, his spirituality survived. Or, moral teachings of the Church change over time. Consider that in the time of Bible since probably ½ the known people in the world were slaves, slavery was seen as part of life, with only the treatment of slaves being a moral issue. Eventually we came to see that slavery was wrong in itself. So, in today’s Church there is room for change on issues such as communion of those married outside the Church, or same-sex marriage. (Ronda’s added comment: my research shows that in Biblical times, slavery was the preferred alternative to being killed by victorious enemies in battle. It was never approved by the Church such as marriage as a sacrament between a man and a woman at all times in the Catholic Church. Slavery was tolerated but not approved and eventually the slave trade condemned by different Popes. I compare it to how many pastors will tolerate parishioners living luxuriously, even if the teaching of the Church is that is good to have necessities, but that our luxuries belong to the poor. For more on that you can read my Way of Love, the part called “Making Loving Moral Decisions.”)
2. ANOTHER VIEW I DON’T HOLD: A Catholic should be free to interpret doctrines as literal and others as symbolic and on moral teachings one could see them as ideals rather than universally binding. Your own conscience should be your norm. Pastoral practice should allow for exceptions to rules. Some of the teachings of Pope Francis RIGHTLY reflect this viewpoint.
3. A VIEW I DO HOLD: Doctrines in the Creed and other documents are true, and only symbolic in a secondary sense. For example, Jesus truly, FACTUALLY, rose from the dead, and also He spirituality survived. Perennial moral teachings include the admonition never to commit any intrinsically evil act such as the deliberate killing of an innocent person, from the innocent unborn, to innocent civilians in war, not to be targeted. Pastoral practices should reflect this truth. 4. A VIEW I DO HOLD: Some Cardinals, Bishops, and lay scholars, are convinced that Pope Francis is wrongly propagating #2 in some instances. They have asked him to clarify and, so far, he has not done so. They are praying for a clarification in the direction of #3. In the meantime, such lay people are clinging to Jesus and to priests they trust for guidance. 5. Some Catholics in different states of life, believe that Bergoglio, who they no longer call Pope Francis, is clearly heretical; some that his election was invalid; so that in either or both cases a conclave has to be held in the near future. 6. Some Catholics are convinced that the prophesied Tribulation and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart is imminent, trumping all these other matters. I AM NOT CONVINCED BUT I WISH IT WERE TRUE. 'Part of aging is reflecting about how God interwove things in one's youth into ways to witness to the faith. One of these that came to mind is this: all the time nowadays people use the word “respect” as in “showing respect for others,” etc. But for those brought up as total atheists such as myself and my twin, I can’t remember ever hearing the word respect when I was a child. Analyzing this later, I realized, why would anyone respect another human if you thought that humans were just grains of sand with an id attached? Of course, as Americans, we believed in rights, but this was really just a cultural hang-over for our remote Christian heritage where it was taken for granted that humans had immortal souls and weren’t just hunks of matter of a highly intricate variety! I found that my Catholic students were fascinated by such observations. Amidst all the fatigue of old age, with the inertia that exhibits itself in feelings of not having energy to do anything one used to do easily, come surprising graces such as this one: I tutor 2 home-schooled Catholic pre-teens 9 and 11 years old for a few hours once a week. I was thinking I was too tired to keep this up. But today I was continuing lessons about the saints and I was up to St. Hildegard. I had the mother find the sung hymns she wrote in the 1100’s on the web. I asked these very bright kids, who have been going to daily Mass since early childhood, what they thought the word “mystic” meant. When I gave them my definition, an enhanced sense of the presence of God, vs. new age descriptions with fortune tellers, etc., here was what they said: “Oh,” said the 11 year old girl, “you mean what I wake up in the night and sense the mystery of life, and I can pray for long periods of time with no strain?” Said the 9 year old altar server, “Oh, well, I can always pray better when I am alone and I would say I almost always sense the presence of God.” Then, when we played the music, I told the girl, who is studying ballet, that I thought the chant like hymns felt like stretching to heaven and that I bet she could dance to the hymns. She rose and danced to the music. I suggested that some day she might have a dance studio where she could do sacred dance more easily than amongst her younger sisters and brothers running around all the time. She was delighted with the thought. And I seconded the idea the boy had of cleaning out a closet and making it into a little prayer cell. What a beautiful time that I would have missed if I had let inertia convince me to stop these lessons!!! Someone gave me a terrific prayer leaflet for anxiety. Maybe some of you know it. There was a certain priest, Don Dolindo, a friend of Padre Pio, who taught worried people how to pray Jesus, Take It Over, whenever they got into what we would now call obsessive anxiety. Google it if you need such a help. Volunteering and old age: It can seem like a good idea, but watch out. I thought it would be ideal to volunteer a few mornings a week at the parish office where there was a great need. The parish administrator is a marvelous woman, patient, diplomatic, who loves serving the parishioners who call on the phone and come to the window for help with Mass intentions, buying candles, getting sacramental certificates. The thing I enjoyed the most, contrary to all expectations, was shredding!!!! I had never even seen a shredder except on TV! I loved the rhythm of it and the sense of closure!!!!     But the other things, which you would think a woman who worked her way through college as a secretary, could easily do, I found very hard. I can’t remember numbers at age 81. So, I put on the receipt for the Mass intentions 2012 instead of 2018!!! Or, I put the godmother in the place on the certificate that says birth mother.
Humiliating mistakes!!!! So, after some months of trying my hardest I am now only an emergency volunteer!  More about aging: I think a lot about types of fragility! Everyone realizes that if they make it to their ‘70’s and, then, ‘80’s, they are going to be weaker. My surprise, is that I am not weaker in some ways, but I am fragile in ways I never expected. I can walk fast on the street, but I can’t stand up without wobbling, unless I use a cane. I can talk loud. I can still type (though many typos), and read even faster than before, and do certain puzzles – I just tear out and throw away any types of puzzles I am not good at, especially what they are called Logic puzzles that have nothing to do with philosophical logic! But, the fragility is different and unexpected. It is a quavery feeling inside my body or my head where I don’t feel competent and strong, but stupid, silly, and weak! This is, of course, compounded by senior moments at a rate of 5 a day. I hate this feeling! I don’t notice it when I am doing something well such as talking, reading, or doing puzzles, but, since I live alone, these activities don’t take up my whole day! I try to pray in words such as these: Dear Jesus, if the only way I will become truly humble and meek is by means of such fragility, let it be. On the other hand, I find a related happy phenomenon. One who always hated house-work because it is so material and I like ideas, now I find that I get amazing joy simply out of accomplishing anything physical successfully. So, my line of self-talk all day goes like this: Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, thank you that I brought the garbage out to the bin in the parking lot; thank you that I made lunch; thank you that I put the dishes in the dish-washer. Sometimes I sing as I go, following the lead of Mrs. Doubtfire, of movie fame.   Now the big news is that I have decided I am too old to live alone. When I started a year and a half ago, I had the fantasy that living alone would mean so much more time for prayer that I would be levitating on the ceiling. Instead I just feel lonely. But, also, my spiritual director agrees that it is good for 80 plus people to be with family. My refuge place will be my grand-daughter’s new house rental in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Sean just got a job teaching geology. They are looking for a rental that has a mother-in-law suite. So in exchange for a big chunk of my pension and social security, they will get me to daily Mass, keep my quarters at 78 degrees, and feed me delicious gourmet healthy meals. I will do the dishes, baby-sit, and pray constantly, plus, of course, utter sage sayings 12 hours a day! Those of you who know me personally know that I am not the easiest person to live with, so you could pray that Jenny and Sean will be able to stand me in spite of personality conflicts. For those who don’t know them, go to goodbooksmedia.com and click on Still a Catholic and read their miraculous story of Sean Hurt’s conversion and Jenny’s reversion to the Catholic faith. Now, here is one of my fantasies for this time that will begin in August. Suppose that without my usual book-writing, teaching, and workshop projects, I will mostly be just trying to be an instrument of love, responding lovingly to everything that presents itself? PRAY FOR ME!!!!! My last writing project is this blog, so you will still relate to Ronda the Blogger. And anyone who wants to e-mail me, it will still be [email protected] since I never figured out how to respond to posts on the blog. The easy method is too costly I am informed. I am also on WCAT radio on a show called RondaView – click on WCAT Radio and click on Programs and see Sundays 4 PM Central. It also archives older shows for listening any time.   Here are some more thoughts about aging: When I was a child most old people (anyone over 50) I thought of as sitting in rocking chairs on porches. Since I never liked rocking chairs, I didn’t think of them as parts of my own old age, even when it was upon me. However, of late, I understand this better. Having been a work-a-holic most of my life, I now, as a retired person, when I sit outside my apartment dwelling waiting for rides I find it wonderful just to watch the goings-on around me, such as… Across the wide Ocean Front street a company is fixing up a large house. Every time I am out waiting for my ride I can watch their progress painting a long wall that guards the mansion from marauders. I like to gaze at the palm trees in the island between lanes on this same street. The first time I saw palm trees when we lived in California I thought they were kind of silly compared to the great oaks of the Eastern country-side. But staring at them now I have come to see the charm of the wide palms blowing in the wind above the thin, thin, trunk. Watching workers fixing a dam that was broken during the recent hurricane, I am fascinated to think what must be in the minds of these tough looking men whose daily tasks are so different than mine were in academe. I like to read novels, autobiographies, and biographies about people who lived through WWI and WWII. It seems to me that I am wanting to take, as it were, a God’s eye view of history, before I leave this world.  Pet Peeve! I have come to hate the word “just.” Not, of course, when it is about justice, but in the slangy perpetual form of: “Now, Ronda, it’s simple…JUST click on this, followed by that, followed by that, followed by that…and you will arrive at your goal on your nifty computer.” Yeah, sure! I added up 10 steps, most of which include references to things on the screen I have never touched, ever, ever, ever, and you pretend this is simple!!!! “Now, Ronda, JUST follow the directions on the can, it’s simple.” Yeah, sure! The directions are in tiny unreadable print. With my old weak hands I can’t push down hard enough to release the top of the can.” “Now, Ronda, to take a cat on the airplane isn’t that hard. JUST get sleeping meds for the cat from the vet, and put the cat in a carrier.” Yeah, sure! I don’t drive. So, to get to the vet I have to ask one of my wonderful, benevolent volunteer drivers to waste a whole morning schlepping me to the vet, and then, since cat’s don’t have medicare, paying a fee just to get a tiny jar of liquid sleeping meds…and then try to keep the cat still while holding open its fierce jaws, to pour these meds down her throat…and try to fit me, my carry-on-bag, and the cat carrier into a wheel chair where sometimes the wheel-chair attendants JUST don’t show up…”  The rage at how knowledgeable, practical people, younger people try to cajole me into accepting impossible tasks leads, of course, to Confession once a week for yelling at the very dear people who are trying to help me! Deep sigh! What do you suggest I should JUST do in such situations????  I want to devote these blogs to thoughts about aging. One of the things I notice, since retirement, is that having much more time, I also obsess about trifles, much, much, much more.  Remedies include these: Deliverance prayer such as “I rebuke the spirit of excessive anxiety about whether to sweep the floor, or check the web news, and lay it at your feet, dear Jesus, take it away." Or, With more important but relatively trifling things: “I surrender to you, Jesus, my future on earth, whether it be lived in this place or another place.” Jesus tells me to stop dog paddling in the waves of life and let Him float me to the shore of eternity.    And, that what counts at this time of life is not what I do each day, or plan for tomorrow on earth, but only to be closer to Him, so I can be a greater instrument of love to everyone I encounter.
On a more natural level, I do better when I stop and appreciate in detail every good sensory phenomenon on my horizon such as the orange fur of my cat, or a beautiful melody in a song. These sensory experiences are a balance to a long life of professional philosophical analysis as a professor and writer My family has a chat where we put up quick silly limerick type poems. I put up this: 81 Year Old Hag’s Song Flee, flee, flee, to the bosom of the family; to the bosom of those who without me wouldn’t be? Where plentiful delicious food and drink there be, and also tender care of me!! But bosom rhymes a bit with thumb! Under whose thumbs do I really want to be? Ah, take the joy, the pain, the love, and, eventually, I, Jesus, will take you to the Trinity!  OUR ABDUCTED DOCTOR HAS AT LAST BEEN FOUND! NOW BACK ABOVE GROUND, UN-GAGGED AND UN-BOUND, THE TREASURE-TROVE THOUGHTS SHE WILL FREELY EXPOUND WILL PROVE MORE THAN BEFORE TO BE RICHLY PROFOUND.  Six months ago I put my Blog, RondaView, on hiatus. I was feeling tired of my own thoughts.
This one will be written during each week and put up on Fridays. The web-master says that there are wonderful old entries on RondaView you might like to check out if you are a newcomer. Let me begin this new start with an account of “where I am at.” After the hiatus I am still in beautiful warm Corpus Christi, Texas, at a wonderful parish I have described before. I volunteer some in the office and setting up Adoration. At 80 I like to do small things that are easy and that help good places. Since my last blog in January, 2017, I went through all my journals of more than 20 years editing them to remove things that might hurt people. Since my autobiography is called En Route to Eternity, written when I was about 55, and at 40 I called myself ½ Way to Eternity, I am calling these journals 6 Toes in Eternity. One of my publishers, En Route Books and Media, has them up for free under the section called Free Downloads. You might find some of the things in 6 Toes in Eternity helpful spiritually; others just funny. Upcoming on this web, goodbooksmedia, you will find a notice of a new booklet that I started on RondaView before the hiatus: this one is called 9 Toes in Eternity and it consists in what I consider to be my best short thoughts in my whole Catholic life from 21-80! It will become a booklet soon, published by goodbooksmedia with delightful graphics. My hope is that people who like my stuff can have this short, short, booklet to give to friends and family who may not want to read even a small book and, certainly not a long book of mine! Since arriving in Corpus Christi, January 2017, I wrote a book with Al Hughes, a pastoral counselor and spiritual director, called Escaping Anxiety on the Road to Spiritual Joy. This book came about in this manner. Arriving here in Corpus Christi at age 79, I had become a little better at anger. This was after more than 20 years of anger management with the system of Abraham Low, founder of Recovery, Intl., not 12 step. However, I found that retirement after some 50 years of teaching was much harder than I thought it would be. When I left teaching at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, I quipped to my last class, “you are the last people who ever have to obey me!” So, when I arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, I renewed contact with my old friend Al Hughes, a widower and retired Lieutenant Air Force Colonel. Since being in a writer’s group of mine 15 years ago he had written several books, published by goodbooksmedia. Check them out on this web-site. Al noticed how anxious I was! Since he is a spiritual director, I asked him to help me. This morphed into a book called Escaping Anxiety on the Road to Spiritual Joy. People who have read it find it very helpful. Check out the description on my web-site www.rondachervin.com under the gyrating link called New Content. Now, what am I thinking about day by day since the hiatus on this Blog? Mostly I think about problems of aging in the context of our faith. Even though I wrote a book about the Joys and Sufferings of Aging when I was 60, at 80 there are many other aspects! Any of you who are 80 know that the period between 70 and 80 years old is just as difficult as other famous decades described by such joyful titles as mid-life crisis or sixty’s crisis! So, I am now thinking that part of my remaining life will be communicating thoughts from my ‘80’s by means of this blog. Here is an example: There can be quite a long period between being averagely competent and being technically demented! Each new type of senior moment can be startling. My worst was walking out of my dorm room at the seminary with a poncho not covering my jumper, but only my slip! But other incidents, now, such as turning on the faucet to fill up the large kitchen sink…walking away…and coming back 15 minutes later to a flood, are also disconcerting. Then comes all these thoughts about moving to assisted living. But, since one of my favorite mentors quipped that every utopia becomes a gulag, I worry that even Catholic assisted living places could turn out to be disappointing. Jesus seems to tell me that it doesn’t matter where I live now. What matters is that I let Him draw closer to my heart so that He can prepare me for eternal life. Just hold My hand tighter. More as I continue to slide down the slippery slope. By the way, Jim Ridley, my wonderful web-master, does forward to me comments some of you make on the blog-board. I can’t go on by myself to respond to these, but if you very much want to exchange ideas with me, you can write me an e-mail at [email protected]. Often I only write back 1 line or so because, as my favorite sentence goes “I am 80 years old and I no longer can – x, y, or z.” If I wrote a whole book on the subject of your e-mail I will refer you to that book and say, after you read my best thoughts if you have questions, write me again. Why repeat in 3 pages of clumsy sentences what I wrote well 30 years ago??? Let us pray for one another! Yes! Here is another reflection about old age: When I was a new convert and age 23, I was brought to see an old dying holy woman. Her name was Marguerite Solbrig and she was the founder of a lay community of whom Dietrich Von Hildebrand, my professor, was the most well-known member. I only saw her for 10 minutes. There was a bed with covers and all I could see was the face of this woman. Her large brown eyes were glowing with mingled suffering and joy as she looked at me with love. I will never forget that look. Now, at an age closer to hers, I am thinking: “We shouldn’t think that our life on earth is over if we can’t do our usual work in the world or and Church. With one look of love, if we truly live in the depth of the heart of Jesus, we could do something intensely meaningful for another person.” |
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