Posted tagged ‘age spots’

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Signs of Age and Age Distractions

July 6, 2019

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          July 6, 2019

                            

Every day one of our local TV stations has a paid 30 minute program where an auditorium full of smiling women listen to a presentation about beauty products and wonder creams. One of the products miraculously makes wrinkles disappear. 

We love to stay looking young…even when we aren’t really even close to be young. There are, however, certain signs of a person’s advancing age that can not be solved with facial creams and hair pieces.

For me, I am horrified by the bushels of hair that grow like weeds out of my ears and nostrils. I trim them, but they’re like dandelions; pull one and two more sprout up!  I can’t hide it. My dad didn’t have that problem. Of course, he had several rounds of radiation for skin cancers on his ears, so he had about half of his ear lobes missing.

Another sign of advancing age that is my giveaway happens when I sit down or stand up. The “moan and groan” audible sounds occur without fail. I’ll be kneeling in front of my basketball team’s bench and an intense battle is happening on the court. I go to stand up to argue a call and the first sound out of my mouth is “Ohhhh” in a pained core of way! The official sympathizes with my plight.

I’ll go to sit down in my seat on the plane and the same sound accompanies my connection with the seat. I don’t remember making those sounds ten years ago.

I know what you’re thinking. Not remembering things is also a sign! I may not remember, but I’m perceptive enough to figure out where you were going with that thought. 

You may be right, however, in your connecting memory with age. A couple of days ago I was talking to someone about the Big Red Machine of the mid-70’s. I can remember the potent lineup of that baseball team…Bench, Perez, Morgan, Concepcion…but I couldn’t remember the new password I chose two days ago for a certain web site. What’s up with that?

This may be too much information, but my morning trips to the bathroom are also a sign of my times. In fact…I’ve got to pause for a moment right here and…

I’m back! Last week I was playing basketball with some thirty-somethings and I did a cross-over dribble with the intent of heading to the basket. The young man guarding me, who is not that quick, easily blocked my way and then when I did a step-back to shoot he swatted my shot away. He’s maybe 5’11”! It was a sign that any illusions I might have had about still being quick were squashed and stomped upon. (To my credit, I did score on him a minute later with a left-handed half-hook shot! Boom, Baby!)

On the other side of the age indicator fence, I’ve learned how to fake it to make people think I’m kinda’ cool and young. Mainly, if the subject being talked about is totally foreign to me I’ve learned how to nod and make other facial expressions that cause me to look knowledgeable. For instance, I am totally clueless about Fortnite. My four year old granddaughter knows more about it and she’s never played or seen it! But I can make people think I am a Fortnite pro without saying a word. I just need to make faces that give a glimmer of intelligence. It’s an age distraction!

I’d better close now because it’s getting close to the time for another of my age signs…my afternoon nap! It’s what I look forward to shortly after I arise in the morning!

Categories: children, coaching, Death, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Richie Bibelheimer…38 Years Later!

July 30, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                July 30, 2017

                               

A couple of weeks ago I was at church camp as…well, I’m not sure what my title position was! I think I was the “Whatever Person.” When someone said “whatever” it was my responsibility, unless it was a high school girl being flippant and obnoxious when she said the word!

So…as the Whatever Supervisor I was able to float from session to session. At our camp week we have elementary, middle school, and high school camps going on at the same time, so I roamed around making sure things were going okay.

The surprise of the week was reconnecting with an old seminary classmate of mine named Richie Bibelheimer. When I heard that name as the pastor for the middle school camp I knew it was my old seminary classmate. I mean…how many Richie Bibelheimer’s can there be, right? It took me a year of seminary just to learn how to pronounce it, and now 38 years later our paths were crossing again!

Here’s the thing about seeing someone 38 years after the last time you saw him! Your picture of him is still the one from 1979! You still remember him from the era of leisure suits, thinner waistlines, and Chuck Taylor high-tops.

He walked right past me at dinner Sunday night in the camp dining hall. After he passed he called my name clothed in question form. “Bill? Bill Wolfe?” I turned and looked at the white-haired senior citizen who had just passed me by. “Richie, is that you?”

“Yes!”

“Good Lord! Richie Bibelheimer!” There’s one thing about seeing someone almost four decades removed! You don’t want to come right out and say it, but you’re thinking it! “Man, do you look old!”

And the thing is, he’s thinking the same thing about you! The last time you saw each other you were in your mid-twenties. You could still jump and run like a gazelle, you had all your hair, and you didn’t have to travel with a pharmacy everywhere. Now your knees hurt, your face sports a couple of age spots, and the only thing progressive about you are the lens in your glasses.

Time keeps going even when we slowly journey through each day, and all of a sudden you meet an old friend and you realize just how far you’ve journeyed since your last conversation.

The other side of that is our reluctance to think that people change, that they will always be who they were back in the day…some obnoxious, some attractive, some hard to figure out, and some who seem to have it all together. People change, however, despite our tendency to firmly implant them in a distant past understanding. The physical changes are easy to see, despite the attempts to hide them or pretend they don’t exist. It’s the inner changes, the emotional upheaval, and the chaos of life that get blanketed from our view. The double chin is easier to see than the broken marriage. The wrinkled face is much more evident than the loss of a child a decade earlier.

Richie and I looked at one another, came to grips with the march of Father Time upon our lives, and enjoyed the blessing of renewed friendship…38 years later as a Whatever Supervisor and a Middle School Camp Pastor.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Freckles, Zits, Warts, and Age Spots

May 22, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                               May 22, 2013

Hitting 59 has made me more conscious of my slowness, morning aches, evening exhaustion, and the multiplying of pill bottles. When I look in the mirror I notice a couple of warts that weren’t always there, but have grown in prominence as I’ve clicked off the years.

The last year of your fifties makes you think of what has been and where you have been. When I was growing up in Winchester, Kentucky I was graced with some freckles on my face. I was actually cute, especially when I was missing a few teeth in the midst of freckled cheeks. Freckles were signs an imaginative childhood. I played with imaginary friends, or even played football against an invisible defense, scoring touchdowns on two yard dives in my backyard. Freckles were child-like, not childish.

A few years later, about the time when it was no longer cool to be cute, pimples started sprouting up on my face like mysterious dandelions in spring lawns. I discovered Clearasil and other products that were suppose to ease the uncomfortableness of adolescence.

Zits were a sign of not knowing whether I was still a child or had emerged into the beginnings of adulthood. It was that time when I wasn’t sure what was going on in my life. I wanted parental closeness, while at the same time keeping some distance. My dad lost some of his intelligence. I insulted my mom’s fried chicken. I wanted to be somebody, and yet I often felt like a nobody. I had a humorous streak about me, but I also was painfully short. Dreams of who I might grow up to be were being shattered. I missed the days of being a child, but knew that I was speeding towards a time of more responsibility.

And now, years later, I look in the mirror and only see trace of the freckles and a couple of little scars from the effects of teenage zits. The warts now stand out. I’m suppose to now have it all together. Experience echoes through my facial imperfections. Although people tell me that I don’t look my age, no one is approaching me to go to a rock concert at Red Rocks, or inviting me to watch Monday Night Football at Buffalo Wild Wings.

I am now a picture of maturity, and I’m about as comfortable with it as I was with youthful blemishes. Oh, it isn’t that I don’t want to be responsible. It is more that I often feel burdened…weighed down by the expectations of others. I want to be able to make mistakes, but I’m often viewed as someone who isn’t allowed to make mistakes.

And yet my warts also tell me that I’m in that phase of life when people want to know what I think, where they will often take their lead from me. There is some sense of gratification that goes with that sprinkled over the mass of responsibility.

I’m just around the corner from the next phase called “age spots.” Sometimes they appear like someone took a red marker to the face. Other times they emerge as little pre-cancerous spots. In fact, I’ve already had a few frozen off by my physician. My dad has undergone two sets of radiation treatments for cancerous spots on his ear and nose.

Age spots are a sign that I’ve gone from being a learner to a leader to a mentor. More of my time will be spent in coffee conversations and quiet reflection. I’ll start collecting letters, photos, and other indications of a lived life. I feel valued as a result of people asking me what I think, as opposed to pressing my opinions. There is soundness in “elders” being respected in the church.

Freckles, zits, warts, and age spots. It seems that there are many parallels between those facial stages and a person’s spiritual development. Dare I also say there are many parallels also with a church’s life stage.

We go from childlike energy and optimism to youthful uncertainty; living out our faith responsibly to passing on the soundness of our beliefs to the next generation.

Chaos appears when we confuse life phases; when a pimpled church tries to pretend it is certain and unyielding in it’s statement of belief, or a warted congregation is childish in it’s actions and attitudes.

A church that is healthy is one that is allowing each of it’s participants to live in the period of faith that they are in.

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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