TFTD
19th July 2008
Rob Marshall
Good morning:
The holiday exodus really gets underway this weekend. Unlike the French – who put their country on autopilot from the 1st August and go on holiday together – we Brits spread our holidays out over a longer period. Nevertheless, this will be one of the busiest “getting away from it all” weekends of the year.
Holidays usually result in mixed blessings. They are often needed but not always easy. Have we really become so out of touch with loved ones, the world at large, with ourselves? We sometimes feel the pain of slowing down, changing the old routine, doing something different. When on the beach or in the country, life changes focus. We see things in a different perspective.
I personally find that natural boundaries between work and leisure are more blurred than I can ever remember. For many of my friends working in a wide range of jobs and professions, the perception is that each day merges with the next: without a beginning or an end: life too easily becomes a continuous cycle of doing and deadlines, with no ability just “to be”.
This week I’m leading a holiday pilgrimage based in Durham celebrating the saints of the north east of England and of Scotland. I was on Iona on Saturday and Holy Island on Thursday. It is indeed clear as I visit many different places that the Celtic and Anglo Saxon saints are once again helping large numbers of people rediscover a better work/life balance. There is a huge interest in Celtic spirituality, ancient sites are being rediscovered, research about this era is hugely popular. And all perhaps because of a natural and quite simple desire in each of us to have enough time to be what God intended us to be: individuals who are at peace with the world and ourselves.
The Northumbrian saints, Aidan and Cuthbert, for instance, were, according to Bede, the historian, full of energy and did a great deal of work. But only as part of a rhythm and connectedness which also placed great emphasis on the ability to withdraw – to spend some time “thinking about it all”, putting everything into a wider perspective of wisdom. They urge us to keep the spiritual flag flying - our spiritual self alive – however swamped we may sometimes feel.
As the holiday season really does get underway this weekend, most of us will contemplate the change of rhythm and routine with a sense of thanksgiving and open mindedness.
Despite the fact that leaving a pressurised job of any kind, as the emails build up, is not at all easy, a period of getting once again in touch with ourselves, and with others, inevitably reaps rewards. Rediscovering the world around us and the value of relationships is a hugely spiritual experience.
Sunday 27 July 2008
Thought For The Day 25th July (BBC Radio 4)
Good morning
The award winning actress Estelle Getty, best known as Sophia Petrillo in the US hit comedy The Golden Girls, died this week. Obituaries paid tribute to her clever contribution to an 80’s American revision of what it means to get older.
The American population, like ours, is getting older and fitter. Old age in the Golden Girls means fun and naughtiness; taking risks and branching out; it’s about the transfer of wisdom and the telling of stories from one generation to the next. Though funny, it is also poignant.
The rise and rise of a generation which would have been regarded as over the hill two decades ago, is only just hitting home. Note how media froth over Dame Helen Mirren in her bikini or news that a 90 year old has just become Cambridge’s oldest PhD recipient is suddenly all a bit ‘old hat’.
All this getting old business needs further, urgent, revision.
Parish life certainly introduces a priest to the radical revisionism necessary in assessing the lives of older people. I meet these people all the time. So-called silver surfers are chatting online, enjoying digital photography and attending fitness classes. They are diet conscious and physically aware.
They are also challenging the presumptuousness and gross immaturity of the younger generations to quite extraordinary lengths – as is the case of the swearing, grandma graphically depicted by Catherine Tate, where resentment for taking liberties of the older generation by the younger, borders on the shocking.
So life expectancy is no longer just about how we live but about the quality and content of our lives. There is still a definite connection between age and wisdom, as frequently celebrated in the Old Testament, where a long life inevitably leads, as the Book of Chronicles suggests, to "a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour". Indeed, the addition of wisdom remains one of the wonders of old age.
But there is a diversifying and changing connection between age and fitness, age and work, age and sex and age and relationships. Getting older can be seen as liberating, increasingly exciting, putting our earlier years comparatively in the shade.
An aging fitter population obviously provides employers, governments, local authorities, certainly the national health service and even the faith communities – with a new set of challenges and opportunities. Provision needs to be made.
For this truly is a golden generation: with wisdom by the bucket load, spiced up with hearty measures of energy, and a quite unparalleled spiritual optimism.
The award winning actress Estelle Getty, best known as Sophia Petrillo in the US hit comedy The Golden Girls, died this week. Obituaries paid tribute to her clever contribution to an 80’s American revision of what it means to get older.
The American population, like ours, is getting older and fitter. Old age in the Golden Girls means fun and naughtiness; taking risks and branching out; it’s about the transfer of wisdom and the telling of stories from one generation to the next. Though funny, it is also poignant.
The rise and rise of a generation which would have been regarded as over the hill two decades ago, is only just hitting home. Note how media froth over Dame Helen Mirren in her bikini or news that a 90 year old has just become Cambridge’s oldest PhD recipient is suddenly all a bit ‘old hat’.
All this getting old business needs further, urgent, revision.
Parish life certainly introduces a priest to the radical revisionism necessary in assessing the lives of older people. I meet these people all the time. So-called silver surfers are chatting online, enjoying digital photography and attending fitness classes. They are diet conscious and physically aware.
They are also challenging the presumptuousness and gross immaturity of the younger generations to quite extraordinary lengths – as is the case of the swearing, grandma graphically depicted by Catherine Tate, where resentment for taking liberties of the older generation by the younger, borders on the shocking.
So life expectancy is no longer just about how we live but about the quality and content of our lives. There is still a definite connection between age and wisdom, as frequently celebrated in the Old Testament, where a long life inevitably leads, as the Book of Chronicles suggests, to "a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour". Indeed, the addition of wisdom remains one of the wonders of old age.
But there is a diversifying and changing connection between age and fitness, age and work, age and sex and age and relationships. Getting older can be seen as liberating, increasingly exciting, putting our earlier years comparatively in the shade.
An aging fitter population obviously provides employers, governments, local authorities, certainly the national health service and even the faith communities – with a new set of challenges and opportunities. Provision needs to be made.
For this truly is a golden generation: with wisdom by the bucket load, spiced up with hearty measures of energy, and a quite unparalleled spiritual optimism.
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