a SENIOR MOMENTS 3 b
 • Octogenariancy slouches on, like it or not. I'm now 89. And having used up a lifetime and more, I note, with a weird sort of satisfaction, that in the process I've also used up two long Senior Moments. Like it or not, time to move on -- to #3. Welcome to this brand spanking new page. Please join me in looking to yet a 4th before it's time to move on to assisted care up in the clouds, beyond Adobe Creative Cloud even. • But before treating you to more of my peculiar wisdom of age, I must share with you this gem. I didn't dream it up. Isaiah did, (Isa 46:44), with a little help from the NIV editors, and me. No, God did, which is why it is the first thing I review in the morning, and why it's worth starting this Senior Moment with: Even to your old age and your Confusion and fears, Your weakness and tears, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will bear, I will save. • I'm so old I remember when if a wrong button were punched on your computer, the screen would be filled with a message announcing in big yellow print, "UNLAWFUL, ILLEGAL ACTION!" AI has come on the scene, and is so much more human, that is to say politically correct and compassionate. Now a big window pops up and says (literally, with a robo voice), "We're sorry but we thought you'd like to know that you have just offended the delicate sensitivity of your motherboard." Besides, nobody is illegal nowadays. Hardly anybody. Aliens absolutely aren't. Differing opinions absolutely are. • Senility like childhood is a magical time. I had my toothbrush in hand and it...just disappeared, whish, like magic. Or else it is a time of fear and paranoia. Who STOLE MY TOOTHBRUSH! • I'm so old I remember WWII and the billions of Camel cigarettes dolled out as goodies to our military. In WWIII, it'll be Cannabis cigs rolled out for our heroes. The surgeon general has determined that Camels are bad for you. Who cares about Cannabis? • As an old doc I know, and prescribed a lot of, digitalis pills. What’s this new digital pill? • In every documentary of the golden age of American industry that I've ever seen the narrator bemoans how assembly line workers were rendered subhuman by having to perform the same task over and over hour after hour. Now workers are outraged that robos have robbed them of the jobs they once were outraged about. Reminds me of Christ's characterization of His generation (Matt 11:17) they would neither mourn at a dirge nor dance at a festival. • We elderly possess the transcendent, cumulative wisdom of age. But being elderly, that wisdom is fixed and not flexible -- which may well be the wisest thing going for it. • I’m so old I remember that old French proverb, “vive la difference!” But recently on the web I happened across the news that in England a sort of textbook for pubescent boys explained why girls had breasts :“to nurture their babies and be attractive.” This part about "be attractive" was deleted. “Fosters the stereotype,” was the explanation. Vive la Stereotype! • Nowadays "vive la difference" is embarrassing. "Vive la diversity" of genders and marriages and trannies is in. But #meToo threatens to take over. Vive la #meToo is the prevailing cry! • I'm so old I remember when we jokingly referred to women as of the "female persuasion." Now it turns out that that was the most prescient thing I ever said! Good sign for a politically correct restroom. • I'm so old I remember when gold-diggers had sugar daddies who supported them cheerfully. Now the gold-diggers sue the guy for sexual harassment, and live even higher on the hog. • I'm so old I remember when if somebody was saying to me "I've got your back," I wished they'd get off from it. • So. So, it has happened: O'Reilly has been spun and axed. Because of -- sigh, THAT again! -- sexual harassment. As I understand it, the final spin was a black lady asserting O'Reilly had been, gasp, leering at her! I'm so old I remember when it was called flirting. I never heard of its being harassment until now.

 

• BD greetings.  "Yet another...   Just when you think you've had enough, enough is enough, you realize that having another -- I speak of course of BDs -- is all the more a direct blessing from God even greater than fb friends, not exactly arousing exaltation and getting you to dancing around and shouting even if you could, but rather for your having been singled out for yet more of the gift of life, and the sense that there must be some purpose not only for life in general but for this much of it.  But I digress, rather expected of one this age -- I'm still a year older than thou, in double digits, high-end digits.    None of this helped, rather distracted from, the main purpose of this -- happy BD to you! --  shouted in a different tone of voice, a different more crackling voice, than I sent to you 70 or 75 years ago."

• Tweet 2:40AM.  I'm so old I remember Erich Seagal's Love Story.  Its message was "Love is never having to say you're sorry."  Marriage is always having to say it, preferably on bended knee, with roses.

• I'm so old I remember when we, we being church people, were admonished by scripture to "be ye perfect even as I [God!] am perfect." (Matt 5:48)  We despaired of achieving such perfection.  But nowadays the aspiration to be like God is, mercifully, way out of date.  But an evil even worse than God has emerged!  Now, at pain of court action and social excommunication, the ultimate persuasions, we are required, not merely admonished, to be ye politically correct. If perfection is unachievable, how unachievable is political correctitude?  Absolutely unachievable!  Woe are we!  [Disclaimer: it should be obvious that I'm being cynical and ironic, hoping to get my point across by offering what sounds exactly the opposite.  May I add to what was clearly ironic, that achieving Godly perfection, with God's help, emerges as the more feasible.  His yoke is easy...compared!]

• I think I'll try it again.  I'm so old I remember when we were admonished, be ye perfect. (Matt 5:48).  Is that possible?   Now, be ye politically correct.  Impossible.  Impossible.

• I'm so old I remember when we would ask ourselves, "How would Jesus do this?"  Now, "How would artificial intelligence do it?"

• I'm so old I remember when Adventists were admonished to leave the city and head for the country.  Now the homeless make it only to the steps of the city hall.

• I'm so old I remember when vegans were vegetarians, the homeless were vagrants,  aliens who simply invaded the country were illegal.

• I'm so old I remember the good old days, the simpler days, the golden age.  Or were they the uncultured, retarded, unenlightened, suppressed, enslaved, bigoted, insensitive, macho, incompassionate, leaden, embarrassing days yearning for utopia -- today?

• I'm so old I remember and believed the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel and how God gave various groups of builders different languages, which resulted in such confusion that everybody dispersed to the ends of the earth.  Now an even more disconcerting confusion has come upon us: we all use the same language  but somehow apply hopelessly different meanings to the same word.  "Compassion" couldn't have more opposite meanings, driving us to riots and safe spaces.

• I'm so old I remember when being progressive meant building on what was already established.  Now being progressive means to laugh at what's established, investigate and prosecute it, dismantle it, call it racist and a danger to the planet.

• Very old, I feel so lucky to be living in this era, surely the most magnificent era in the world's history, surely in the history of this nation.  Truly there's never been such an era as ours, so much to protest, to cry over, rebel against, blog about.  The middle finger turns out to be more crucial in the evolution of modern man than his thumb.