Egads…. how in the world did that happen????  I turned seventy this year.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was holding hands with Barb Weeks at St. Joseph’s pre-school or Jon White was walking me home from Callanan?  I wonder if I could still do a ballet leg with the Sharks synchronized swimming team at Roosevelt High School or would I dare fly on the rope swing garbed in my blast jacket?  I think I can still jitter bug with the best of them, but roller skating might be out.

I know, I know, age is supposed to be just a number.  In that past that might have been the case, but SEVENTY sounds somehow formidable!

Sydney Perry, the Chief Executive of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven reflects on his seventh birthday:

“Today I turn 70.  It’s a great blessing to reach 70.  One can look back on a long span of life’s joy and achievements.  Still, it’s hard for me to believe; I don’t feel old (unless I look too closely in the mirror).  I am grateful to be healthy, to have energy and passion for both my family and my work, and even though I have an AARP card and happily present it at the movie theater, I consider “old” to be my mother’s age, and only hope I will be as spry, as active and as mentally acute as she is at almost 92.”

Many of the Boyz and members of SAGE would just laugh at me, and call me a mere spring chicken!

My life has been so rich in so many ways.  My greatest gift has been my faith, and that faith has allowed the Holy Spirit to take me to so many wonderful places to do such joy filled and challenging ministry.  So…look out, Pinnacle Presbyterian, because I’m still very alive and kickin’!  There is work to be done, ministry to be shared, faith to be expressed.

I leave you with a poem by Billy Collins

One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
As I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
That I was the same age as Cheerios.

Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
For today, the newspaper announced,
Was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
Whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.

Already I could hear them whispering
Behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude’s older than Cheerios
The way they used to say

Why that’s as old as the hills,
Only the hills are much older than the Cheerios
Or any American breakfast cereal,
And more noble and enduring are the hills,

I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.