Enjoying the "Exit Lane"

Been reflecting on life, specifically on aging. It’s an interesting project. Physically, stuff begins to happen. It makes you realize how temporary is our stay here on earth. Along the way things begin to wear out. Your eyes get a bit out of focus. Then often something happens in the ears and you’re not able to hear as well. Skin gets tired and itchy. The immune system doesn’t function quite as well. The memory is a tough part because people are so solicitous and raise their voices and speak  v  e  r  y    s  l  o  w  l  y   s o  y o u  c a n  g e t  i t.
         Then there’s a series of operations you have to endure. Mine have been prostate cancer, carpal tunnel, pilonidal cyst, broken hips, broken ankle and a new knee. Don’t forget the uneasy stomach, the sleeping problem, and medications like you had never dreamed of. Wow! People hold the door open for you, they ask if you have to go poo-poo. Then there are CAT scans, colonoscopies, endoscopies, neuropathy, and sudden trips to the ER ( to get the heart to quite beating like that) . You even have your toenails cut by no one less that a medical school graduate.
         What haven’t I mentioned? Oh yes, the questions: Are you still driving? Didn’t you see that car? Have you forgotten your cane? Is a short dinner about 5 pm too much for you? Did you know that you started talking when what’s-her-name was still explaining her recent whatever? Where did you put your keys?
 
         All in all, at the ripe old age of . . . you name it . . . you find yourself on the sidelines of history. With knowing smiles people ask you – always very kindly – about your accumulation of insights for living. They ask, but you are not sure they really want to know. At least they tried.
         However, “Life in the Exit Lane,” as Howard Stein called it in one of his excellent books, is actually kind of neat. The trick is to let others do/say/think/feel anyway they want to. It’s a fact that they are getting old as well, and you represent the one thing that will happen to everybody. We wear out. So goodbye neat world; I’m off for heaven and my sometimes whimsical questioning about whether or not there actually is a never-ending future will soon be answered. I’d let you know from the other side, but you are not yet equipped with the wisdom and insight of the elderly so you wouldn’t understand. You will in time! I guarantee it.
         If you are still awake after the litany of what may of may not  happen as we enter “The Exit Lane,” let me tell you what I believe is waiting for the child of God recently graduated from life as we know it. Imagine explaining the theory of gravitation to a young child. Difficult for sure. How about trying to explain it to Rover, the household dog? And you say “Come on!” No, not really. The dog and I live together in the same world, breath the same air, watch what is going on together. We live in the same world and share many things in the same way, but “explaining quantum physics” to a dog? God’s problem of explaining heaven to us is a lot like that.
         My point is that “heaven” as we perceive it has of necessity been reduced to a level where we can get an idea of it but at a level which falls short by a million miles. We are the family “dog” and God is the master of the house. We understand it when he says “Sit!” We enjoy the good “food” he sets before us,  but when he begins to tell us about – say, something like  . . . . systemic capillary geophysical reduction of astrophysical suspension – we just don’t get it.
         That is what waits for us on “the other side.” It is so beyond our limited “puppy dog” mentality that the best we can do is to wag our tail and give him our happiest bark! God is good and God is great; what lies beyond is far too wonderful to be squeezed into our vocabulary or thought patterns. So as we wait for our obit to appear in the local newspaper, let’s raise our voices in praise to the Giver of all that is good!