A friend sent me an e-book this afternoon: The Gift of Years by Joan Chittister. I’ve only read the introduction and I think I’ll love this book which is about old age. Growing Older Gracefully is its subtitle. The author questions in the introduction the general notion about life being one linear progression from birth to death. “What we did yesterday, what we do today, cannot be undone.” This is deadly thinking, Chittister says. It sets our future in cement by freezing our successes and failures in eternal measures. Fixed once and for all. “My life has been nothing but a series of new beginnings,” she asserts. Every day can be a new day, a new beginning. This moment can be a new beginning. As I was reading this part of the introduction, a parable from Tony D’Mello came to my mind. I’m modifying the parable a bit to avoid the hunting mentioned in the original. I don’t like the idea of anyone shooting down a bird. So I shall make it an innocuous ball. A man was training his
Cerebrate and Celebrate