Things I Learned From a 98-year-old

In the April 5^th, 2007, issue of TIME magazine, Walter Isaacson, a noted expert on the life of Albert Einstein, wrote the following in an article entitled, “Einstein and Faith”:

When Albert Einstein was asked if he believed in God, here was his response: "I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws.The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.” 

That’s how the father of the theory of relativity put it years ago.  This is how St. Paul said it nineteen hundred years earlier. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Eugene Peterson, in his translation of the Bible called The Message, chooses these words:  “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see.”   Trust in God.  With each passing year of life, I grow in my conviction that the bottom line essential of the religious life, is captured not in a doctrine or a dogma, in a set of religious propositions or suppositions.  Rather, the bottom line essential of the religious life resides in the heart that trusts God.  Trusting God.  The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. 

That’s why Paul in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews exalts the lives of Abraham and Sarah; their inclination bent them in the direction of trusting the God who made promises about the future, promises they couldn’t see, promises that stretched their ability to imagine, promises that were far off in a future that was distant. They trusted God without the benefit of immediate evidence.  They trusted God even when their present circumstances suggested they shouldn’t.  Abraham, says Paul, was “as good as dead” – as good as dead because he and Sarah were beyond their child-producing years. Abraham was ninety-nine and Sarah ninety when God told them to trust in the promises. They had no children, no nursery room, not even a crib in attice, yet God promised that their descendants would outnumber the stars in the night sky and grow more numerous than the sands along Holland State Park. They trusted God with their lives.    That’s why Jesus said what he said to his disciples who would be no match for the Roman soldier, no match for Caesar’s strong arm.  “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).  It was a matter of trust.     

Do you  remember Tammy Faye, the heavy mascara and the phony eyelashes? She was once married to Jim Bakker.  Together they built the PTL (Praise The Lord) Club.  And they sure did.  The PTL Club took in about 175 million dollars a year.  TV ministry. Theme park. An opulent lifestyle.  Then they got into a little trouble with the IRS.  And Jim got into more trouble during a twenty-minute encounter with a young woman named Jessica Hahn.  He paid her $265,000 to keep quiet.  She didn’t.  Instead she appeared in Playboy.  Jim served a five-year prison term.  And Tammy got cancer.  It first appeared in her colon, then spread to her liver, then to her back. 

She died a few months ago, weighing less than seventy-pounds.  Larry King interviewed a few weeks before her death.  For a person who might have been haunted by resentments and regrets, she exuded much gratitude and hope. She admitted her fears. When Larry asked what she did to face the ultimate enemy, what she did to face death, Tammy Faye said her faith was strong: "I just pray every day to God, and I say to him, 'I trust you with me.'"

I trust you with me.  I trust you with me.  There’s a lifetime of wisdom in those words, “Dear God, I trust you with me.”  Wisdom not only to face death, but to live life.  "Dear God, I trust you with me.”  Though I know not  what the future holds, dear God, I trust you with me.  Though I know not how to put my life back together, dear God, I trust you with me.  Though my public burdens are many and my private one even more, dear God, I trust you with me.  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  The fundamental fact of our existence is this trust in God. 

We said goodbye, we bid farewell, we waved bon voyage last week to a dearly beloved friend and member of East Church.  Sylvia Hyma was ninety-eight years of age.  A young ninety-eight, I might add.  Almost the same age as the patriarch Abraham when he was tapped on the shoulder by God for a special mission.   

I learned some things from this ninety-eight-year-old, many things about life and the life of trust.  I should like to share with you seven of them.

#1 - Live as though you expect be ninety-eight.  I realize some of us are closer to that reality than others, but most of us won’t reach that age.  But why not live as though we expect to.  We might take better care of ourselves – physically, emotionally, spiritually.  Just imagine being seventy, and realizing you have another twenty-eight years to make a difference in this world.  You might even go to sub-Saharan Africa to work on a crew drilling well for fresh water.

#2 - Don’t forget the handwritten note.  Sylvia was a tireless note-writer.  I don’t know if she was familiar with a computer; maybe that was just as well. But she certainly wore out many a pen in jotting thoughtful sentiments to folks who needed it.  You’d be amazed how much good a handwritten note can do, even if it just says “I’m thinking about you.”

#3 - Read some poetry once and awhile.  It doesn’t have to be volumes.  You don’t even have to thoroughly understand it.  It doesn’t have to have practical application.  Just read it.  Like flowers in a garden, poetry adds beauty and texture to life.

Sylvia especially liked this one by Helen Steiner Rice:

When I must leave you for a little while,                                                                                  Please do not grieve and shed wild tears                                                                                   And hug your sorrow to you through the years,                                                                          But start out bravely with a gallant smile;                                                                                  And for my sake and in my name                                                                                              Live on and do all the things the same.                                                                                     Feed not on your loneliness on empty days                                                                                But fill each waking hour in useful ways.                                                                                  Reach out your hand in comfort and in cheer,                                                                          And I in turn will comfort you and hold you   near;                                                                  And never, never be afraid to die                                                                                               For I am waiting for you in the sky!  

#4 – Read.  Read even if your eyes get weak.  Read even if you need to hold a magnifying glass in front of them.  Read whatever grabs your attention.  Read history or Harlequin Romance.  Read for leisure.  Read to escape.  Read for learning.  Read because you know how.  If you never stop reading, or being read to, you’ll never stop growing.  FYI, in her last years Sylvia was brushing up on the history of Iraq and the Middle East.

#5 - Pay attention to children.  You’d expect a lifelong educator like Sylvia to hold that in high regard.  Practice some patience with them, we were all at that stage once.  Remember, children learn from adults by what they do more than by what adults say.  And Jesus said, “Unless you become like a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”

#6- Sylvia would want me to say this one: Get to church as often as you can.  Is there a better way to spend you time.  Sylvia was here every Sunday she was able, even on those Sundays when she should have stay home.  Medical research has shown that church attendance is one factor to longevity. 

#7 - Plan your funeral so others won’t have to.  Decide which hymns stir your soul and move you to tears and include them in your service.  Have read at your funeral the scripture passages that brought you the greatest comfort.   Perhaps include a poem, or a line from Shakespeare or Erma Bombeck.  

Those are a few things I learned from a 98-year-old.  Remember, the true measure of our lives is not tallied by the things we have, but in the trust we have in God.  Have a trust-filled week, my friends.