The
New Millennium
2000 AD! The year
2000 meant next to nothing without the AD
Anno Domini means The Year
of Our Lord and that Lord is Jesus Christ
The Churches (for once) acting together
adopted this Mission Statement:
The task of the Churches
in the Millennium is to forge a link between
the year 2000, the name of
Jesus Christ, and the possibility of personal meaning and public hope.
They also produced The Millennium Resolution.
All that seems like Old Hat now (October 2001) and I have
updated this page, but not much since it already looked further ahead into
what is now called the 21st Century.
Age Concern continue to
point out that the proportion of the population aged over 80 is increasing
rapidly. By 2020 their numbers will have increased by half a million and
by 2040, by a further one and a half million. Since (if I live that long)
I shall be 80 in 2018 they are talking about me! A new friend (born 98)
will be 20 and he and his peers will be supporting me and mine.
Anyone
of my age, and over, will remember a quiz programme on "Steam" Radio called
Have
A Go and Wilfred Pickles who hosted it. Prizes were around half
a crown (12.5p!) Frequently the contestants were elderly (over 60) and
expected, and always received, a clap if they were over seventy and still
alive. Now, Age Concern defines elderly as over 80. And maybe it
should be 90. The question is: do they still expect a clap? Possibly
not, but by gum don't they complain about being old, having to use a stick
or being unable to get out.
Age Concern also produced a paper which includes
The Age Indifference Principle:
An individual's entitlement to the concern,
respect and protection of the community,
does not vary with age or life expectancy.
I support that absolutely and in particular refuse to behave patronisingly
either to old folk or children. But just as I do not expect children to
complain that they cannot take up motor racing, I do not expect the old
and infirm to do so either. To the former I would say
wait,
but make sure that, when something you dearly want to do is within your
grasp, you make the effort to do it. To the latter, or rather to
those approaching the time when it will be too late: For heaven sake open
your mind, let go of those certainties that have kept you in chains for
30 years and make a contribution to the present, which you can subsequently
enjoy in old age as a treasured memory. One way to do so is to join the
University
of the Third Age, where
Autumn can
prepare for
Winter. (Third Age
for Fourth Age)
What then, shall we sit idly down and say:
The night hath come, it is no longer day?
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.
For age is opportunity no less
than youth itself, though in another dress.
And as the evening twilight fades away,
the sky is filled with stars invisible by day
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Third Age is not too late for worthwhile fruit and a
special opportunity to collect extra memories to treasure into later life
and to record those from the two earlier ages. That is certainly what I
have done and I recommend it. It is why I have built my Web pages around
the word TREASURE.
Looking Back on Treasure is fine, but much more important is looking
forward to Eternal
Life. What do we really believe about Life after Death.
Do we follow the Creed and believe that we rest in our graves until Jesus
comes again to Judge both the Living and the Dead. Or do we, like
the thief on the Cross next to Jesus, expect to be immediately with Him
in Paradise. What about those who do not believe? The Church needs to get
clear on these matters, so that Fourth Agers (and those who mourn earlier
deaths) can have a real sense of Confidence in Eternity.
Part of that confidence can be gained by storing
Treasure in Heaven.
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