Simple instructions for living in "The Second Half "of life.

Grow Older Graciously
“Your Agenda for the Second Half”
The number one step for gracious living at any age, but especially in the Second Half, is to accurately assess how much you have to give that everybody else needs. First, set aside all inappropriate modesty. This is the kind of modesty that belittles yourself with pious sounding self-discounts. For some it is a lifelong bad habit long overdue for change. If you chronically belittle yourself, or if you quietly regard yourself as second-rate or of little value to the human race, it is time to stop. It is not true!
You have something every living human being needs. In the Second Half of your life, when other pressures and responsibilities are changing, and even dropping away, a new opportunity is open and inviting your participation. It is to be an encourager of the younger generation, and your peers. What a great new title to own: “I am an encourager.”
Inside each of us are piles and volumes of unspoken appreciation, admiration, and adoration. Inside us are compliments that have never been expressed. Some we haven’t even noticed in our own hearts. We are carrying kind words aching to be uttered. We have unused smiles to spread everywhere we go. We never run dry. We are full of goodness and loving-kindness waiting to be shared.
There is no human being who cannot use what you are carrying around. Abandon any tendency to think of yourself as of little value in this world. Everyone needs what you have! A few days ago I was visiting at “The Home” and a ninety year old woman came up and identified herself. We chatted and I said to her “You are beautiful!” She glowed like she had been plugged into an electric socket. It was so easy, so natural, so inspiring to her.
Many of us have found our primary identity in our occupation. Therefore retirement can create a puzzle. “Who am I now?” If the answer was always connected to your job, to how you earned money, or your role as a father or mother, you may wonder who are now. At least you may be uncertain about that. Here is the answer.
“You are the light of the world.” says Jesus. There is a fresh and powerful identity. It will never be extinguished. Retirement years can free us for a more deliberate and intentional career brightening our environment. Your work, employment, trade, aided the world but now there is a new opportunity. It is noticing and actively encouraging, listening, appreciating, thanking, cheering people.
Growing older graciously is recognizing in your peers, and all the younger folks around you, their need for some form of spirit-lifting gift. Gracious living finds ways to say “You are a very wonderful young man”—by a note, an e-mail, a card, or word of mouth. Gracious living is giving support and spirit-lifting words at the car wash, the grocery store, the bank, and the Post Office. Graciousness is forgetting yourself and giving to others. You have so much to give! And it will be there until your final breath, no matter how much you give away.

My book The Miracle of Kindness can help you with this agenda..

Vital Reminder

"Appreciative words are the most powerful force for good on earth." George W. Crane

A Touch Can Heal. Care and Kindness dates

“Living Your Faith”

A fresh new slogan will promote our 13th annual Care and Kindness event, March 11, 12, and 13, 2010. . It is “Living Your Faith” because that is the bottom line about this conference. We will use these three words to boldly make it clear that Loving-kindness is at the heart of Christian living. We want to make it very obvious that every individual is “the light of the world” called to shine brightly. And our goal is to help them do that.

Call 714.971.4031 for information about “Living Your Faith”

The Power of a Touch
At a recent dinner/entertainment event which I was hosting something happened I want to tell you about. During the dinner I had strolled around the tables greeting and chatting with the diners, joking and kidding most of the time.

A few weeks after that dinner I met a handsome older man (turned out he is 82 years old) who told me he had been present at the affair. He then told me something that thrilled me to the depths of my soul, and stunned me with its importance. He said that I had walked past him when he was sitting at a table and that I had laid my hand ever so briefly on his shoulder, as I went by. Then he added “That touch absolutely blessed me!” And he said a little more about what a strong moment that had been.

A touch as I walked by! So small! So appreciated! A touch! And he was moved, his spirits were lifted, his mood was changed.

Again I am jolted into awareness of the importance of our Care and Kindness campaign. This is life changing business. This is spreading spiritual medicine everywhere we go. And anyone and everyone is able to take part. It takes so little to heal a soul.

(SP ACK) Special Act of Kindness

Special Act of Kindness (SP ACK) Across the street from our church is a private business. It is relatively inconspicuous because most of it is behind a large old family house turned into the office building. Then there are a half dozen rows of orange trees fronting the property, for about fifty yards, along the street. The working area is down a driveway behind all that. Every day I exit our church property and look directly at that scene. But it is changing. Instead of a chain link fence in front of the orange trees they are constructing a beautiful stone wall out of attractive flat stones slabs. A good looking iron railing graces the top of it. Yesterday as I left for home I noticed a workman, trowel in hand, scraping excess concrete off the stones of the wall. I pulled over and opened my car window. “That is really a great looking wall you have made there. What a wonderful piece of work!” I was surprised at how warmly the man responded. Whoever he was he took total ownership of the project. He stood up, smiled and responded “thank you very much!” I drove home feeling like a million dollars.

We Remember Acts of Kindness

THE KINDNESS REMAINS

Jesus can be as hard as flint at the very moment He is as tender as a mother. He can be tenderly terrible and terribly tender.

A little orphaned boy was practically adopted by a soldier during the war. One day he let slip a swear word, and when he did, he looked around for the disapproval and rebuke of his adopted guardian. But instead the soldier laughed and said, “Never mind, Sonny, say all that kind of thing you want.” The little fellow thought a moment and then burst into tears and said, “If you were my father, you wouldn’t say that.” He felt he wanted and needed something more than sentimental kindness. He wanted to be saved by hard refusals.

With this redemptive content put into kindness we now consider our growth in kindness. Perhaps now we can quote these lines, since we have put into kindness a higher meaning:

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When all that this sad world needs
Is just the art of being kind.

That kindness is important is seen by the fact that we remember an act of kindness when all events slip out of memory. The kindness remains. At a time when bitterness was strong between Britain and India, I found a prominent Indian wearing a white flower in his buttonhole each day. He explained to me that when he was in Britain studying, the English landlady used to put a white flower in his buttonhole each day. The kindness stood out like a star on a dark night of bitterness.

The Finnish people have treated me with many honors – large crowds, eager listeners – but the one thing that stands out is the act of an unknown Finnish lady who ran out into the street in the snow, stopped the car and handed me a flower through the window. That flower blooms fresh and fragrant in my grateful memory.

O Father, help me this day to do some little act of kindness that may live in somebody’s memory forever. Amen.

AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I cover all ugly unkindness with the same robe of kindliness with which He covers my ugliness.

Eight Anonymous Essays about Kindness

Eight essays about kindness are being offered, starting with this one entitled "Growth in Kindliness". I do not know who the author is. Three years ago someone handed me six very old pages that looked as if they had been torn from a book. Or, they were part of a daily devotions wall-hanger. They have been typed for your edification.

I. GROWTH IN KINDLINESS

We come now to the next fruit of the Spirit – kindliness.
This is a very homely virtue, homely in the British sense of belonging to the home – a very commonplace, ordinary virtue. And yet it is ordinary as salt, and as essential. Without kindliness there is no virtue in the other virtues. It puts a flavor into all the other virtues; without it they are insipid and tasteless; or worse, they degenerate into vices. Love, joy, peace, good temper; without kindliness are very doubtful virtues. So it is no chance that this is the middle virtue of the nine, putting flavor into all the others.

So to grow in kindliness is to grow in virtues that are flavored with a certain spirit. The spirit of kindliness pervades everything. The Old Testament, especially the Psalms, uses the expression "loving-kindness." A little boy explained the difference between kindness and loving-kindness: "Kindness is when your mother gives you a piece of bread and butter, but it is loving-kindness when she puts jam on it as well.

But in the New Testament a content has gone into kindness that made the adding of "loving" unnecessary. We have quoted a passage into which the content of Jesus has gone into the words: "Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in Christ Jesus" (Phil.2:5, Moffatt). Not merely the same actions, but the same spirit in the actions as was in Jesus. This is the high water of morality in this universe. Beyond this the human race will not, and cannot, progress. This is a character and conduct ultimate. This gives kindness a plus – an infinite plus.

And this saves kindness from mere maudlin sentimentality. It can be very severe – severe because He loves so deeply that He often has to save us by hard refusals. And His kingdom can cut – it can cut when, like a surgeon, He insists on cutting out of us moral tumors and cancers. But always His severity is security. It is redemptive. He loves us too much to let us go.


O Christ, show Your kindness to me this day even if it be a cutting kindness, for I don’t want leniency; I want life. Amen.


AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I want God to be kind to me in the form that my deepest necessities demand.