Practicing Faith: Keep Exploring

      Turning sixty was liberating. I got a new stack of blank pages ready to fill with promises, possibilities, mysteries, and adventures. I had a new chance at life. Old things passed away; new things were coming. I was finally old enough to grow my hair out again, like I did in the 1970s, like a Hogwarts headmaster, or better, like Zorro (Anthony Hopkins edition).

      When I turned fifty it felt like release. I said goodbye to all expectations of being cool or hip or fashionable and started crediting my idiosyncrasies as eccentricities. It was great. I was finally living up to my gray hair and beard.

      No one, including me, cared if I knew current pop songs or TV shows. In fact, even better, no one expected me to know. It was grand.

      When I turned forty, I finally felt like an adult. (No, that’s not entirely correct. Even today I only feel like an adult about 50-60% of the time. I always think of adults as the men of my dad’s generation, whatever age that happens to be.) However, by forty, I could no longer hide behind my age. I was old enough to know stuff, old enough to stop blaming behavior on my upbringing, old enough to formulate my own opinions without basing them on a talk radio host or what the guys at work say, old enough to settle into my reading list and read the books I enjoy, old enough to learn new ideas, old enough to change my mind.

      When I turned thirty, well, that one is still a blur in my memory. We had a six-year-old and a three-year-old and dad-hood took its toll on my brain cells. The summer of my birthday we moved, but didn’t move, to California due to a promotion I got, and then didn’t get. A few months later I was with my son Byron when he was hit by a car while we were all riding bikes one Saturday afternoon. It changed my understanding of being a father and spiritual leader. I learned bad things could happen to those I love even if I was acting responsibly and following the rules. It was the first time in my life I called upon God out of desperation and fear.

      The year I turned twenty was my last of three summers touring with Continental Singers as a bass trombonist, and my segue into big-time college life at the University of Oklahoma. It was the beginning of my lifelong journey with personal discipleship, my introduction to daily spiritual practices and teaching, my first experience with leaders who deliberately invested in my life, and my first date with Cyndi Richardson. Little did I know I was starting the adventures that would define my future.

      Recently my daughter, Katie, gave me a red and white patch that says “Keep Exploring.” In the 1970s I would’ve sewn it on my bell-bottomed blue jeans so that everyone else could see it, but instead I asked Cyndi to sew it on my backpack so that I would see it every day as a permanent reminder of how I want to live.

      The Keep Exploring movement was created by Alex and Bret, two young men from Flower Mound, Texas. Their webpage says this: “Keep Exploring is the simple idea that adventure can be found anywhere. We are trying to be better explorers by seeking out opportunities in everyday life. This is a collaborative movement - Everyone is invited. Start looking for new roads to take, old mountains to climb, and wild food to chew.”

      Well, that’s who I want to be. Maybe not the chewing of wild food part, but I want my sixties to be years of exploring new ideas, trails, mountains, techniques, books, movies, relationships, influences, and music.

      One Sunday afternoon I was cycling with my friend, Wes, and we were working through our increasing list of athletic ailments. Wes changed everything by saying, “This is the best time of our lives. We’re finally old enough people listen to us. We can really make a difference.”

      I thought about what he said for a long time. Through the years I’ve been motivated by this thought: If I apply the weight of my life toward the people God has entrusted to me, I can change the world. But now, even that seems too small. I no longer want to merely change the world … I want to change The Future. I am finally old enough, finally weighty enough, to speak truth into hearts and change the future.

*   *   *   *   *

      What have I left behind becoming an adult? Well, I’ve left behind the impatience and longing to be a grownup who can make his own decisions, do whatever he wants, and spend his own money. It turned out to be more about worry and obligation than wide-horizon freedom.

      I’ve left behind excuses. Whatever adult skills I’ve yet to acquire, such as auto mechanics or golf, I can no longer say not one has taught me. Anything I don’t know, or know how to do, is my own fault, and I have no one to blame but myself.

      Another thing I’ve left behind is the idea I have to be good at everything. When I was young, I tried lots of things – soccer, racquetball, cycling, writing, politics, and on and on. Some of those turned out to be who I am, others I tossed over the side. It was a breakthrough for me when I realized I didn’t have to keep doing whatever I started for the rest of life. I could change my mind and move on to something else. I look back on these young adult days as my trial-and-error phase. Now, I don’t want to accumulate. I want to narrow and refine.

*   *   *   *   *

      It’s occurred to me when I use words like liberating (in my sixties) and release (in my fifties) it sounds like I might be disengaging, giving up, or maybe even running away. But what I intend to do is engage, step up, and lean forward. Liberating release is the freedom to be myself.

      That sounds so high minded, but the truth is, freedom is costly. Not everything about aging is a reward. The price is usually sudden and shocking and includes some loss of ability or function.

      I recently told my friend Bill how the slightest bump can put brown bruises on my skin and I quickly start bleeding. He was having the same problem. It was a recent phenomenon for both of us, a product of aging.

      For example, I was in Best Buy entering the checkout line when a blue-shirted employee asked if I was OK. She was pointing at my arm, specifically the trail of blood running across my skin. I had apparently bumped my arm on one of the display racks as I circled the checkout maze, a bump so slight I didn’t notice, but now I was bleeding. This sort of thing happens way too often. I never expected my hands to turn into my Dad’s hands. I’m not happy about that.

      Bill and I wondered if all the fanny packs worn by men in the retirement village where my dad used to live, the ones I thought were full of snacks and candy, were really full of body repair kits: Band Aids, Liquid Skin, Super Glue, Ace Bandages, Advil, absorbent towels, etc. Was that our future?

      I don’t resent the effects of aging. I just want to know how to deal with them, how to do work-arounds, how to compensate and keep moving. I suppose I could stay home and sit in my recliner where it’s safe, but as Jeff, my friend and eye doctor, once reminded me, “That’s not a world you and I want to live in.”

*   *   *   *   *

      Getting older reminds me of being a teenager. Remember how we were completely shocked that all our new freedoms and opportunities were accompanied by increased expectations and obligations? Every generation is stunned to learn they are now responsible to take care of themselves and take care of their own business when all they wanted was their own phone, their own truck, and a chance to stay up late.

      In the same way, I’m constantly surprised at the new baggage that occupies my silver-haired years. One recent Saturday morning I woke up with a stiff and painful ankle. How could anyone sprain their ankle while sleeping?

      Here’s another: I’ve never had great vision – I was the kid in first grade wearing glasses – but I’m still surprised whenever I can’t see. Just last night, feeling noble, I dug out my old Bible memory verse cards only to realize I couldn’t read them. The writing was impossibly small. What was I thinking when I wrote them out so tiny? I don’t know how I ever read those.

      And now that I have finally outgrown face zits, which by the way took decades longer than I expected, I get blotches and bumps and tags on my face, all of which look like cancer to me. I even started going to a dermatologist. On my first visit he asked, “Mr. Simpson, what brought you in this morning?” I said, “I decided to be a grownup for a change and get professional advice.” He told me my concerns were nothing more than marks of old-age and come back next year.

      Yet, even with all these strange aging indicators, and I haven’t mentioned them all since memory is a big one, I love the freedom and understanding that comes with age.  I don’t resent transitioning from running to cycling, or adapting from tiny print to 12-point font. I wonder what will be next.

      I fully expect the next years to be the best ones. I just read a headline that said, “World’s Oldest backpacker plans two-month trip to Europe at 95 years old.” That sounds great to me, like something I want to do. I hope my shoulder feels better by then.

*   *   *   *   *

      I’m typing this with Band-Aids on my right hand: one on my right thumb, and the other on my right index finger. They’re the cloth-type Band-Aids, flexible and persistent, but they collect every speck of dirt that meanders by. After a few hours my hand feels like I’m wearing a bulky cotton work glove. It’s a clumsy and awkward setup, and I don’t recommend it. The inconvenience soon surpasses any pain from the original injury, and I am tempted to pull them off and try typing without them. It’s only my years as a grown-up, which have taught me healing takes time regardless of whether I’m patient. I left the Band-Aids in place.

      What happened to my hand? One evening Cyndi and I joined the local bike club for the Urban Mountain Bike Ride. We don’t get to ride together very often, so this felt like a date. Instead of buying flowers, though, I bought Cyndi a front and back light for her bike. It was a great start.

      After we arrived at the Midland College parking lot, I unloaded and reassembled the bikes and pedaled around a bit on each one to make sure everything worked. While I was riding my own bike and adjusting my helmet mirror, not paying attention to where I was going since it’s a huge parking lot and what could possibly happen, I ran into one of those bright yellow curb bumpers. I didn’t know I’d collided with the bumper until I hit the asphalt.

      Fortunately for me I was creeping along, so my crash didn’t result in any road rash. However, I ended up with a cut in my thumb and finger, a knot on my right thigh, and a strangeness on my left hip.

      I could tell right away these were only superficial wounds and wouldn’t interfere with the fun of the evening. After shooing away all the potential first-aiders, I checked to make sure my bike wasn’t damaged. Both wheels and brakes worked. I was ready to move.

      As far as bike crashes go, this was mostly benign. Two Band-Aids and two days of sore quads and I was fine. Not like my 2013 crash which left me with a watermelon-sized butt and hip and weekly visits to Wound Management for the entire summer. This time it was inconvenience rather than real injury.

      The morning after crashing I told my story to a surprisingly-unsympathetic friend who asked, “Aren’t you too old to be hitting the pavement?”

      “Yes, I am.”

      What I didn’t tell my friend, who is someone who would never hit the pavement because they never do anything except sit on the couch and watch TV, was that there is risk with not doing Urban Mountain Bike Rides. The risk of losing adventure and heart and soul.

      Still, my friend was correct: I’m too old to be hitting the pavement. While I hope to have many years of risk and adventure ahead, I’m old enough and smart enough to look where I’m going and wait to adjust my helmet mirror until I stop moving. Each adventure – each blank page – each phase of life – requires its own wisdom and responsibility.

*   *   *   *   *

      And then I woke up Wednesday morning with a broken toe. At least, that’s what it felt like.

      The big toe on my left foot felt like I had jammed it, or broken it, sometime during the night while peacefully asleep in bed. That scenario seemed unlikely, but I couldn’t deny the stiffness and swelling and pain. All my toes were puffed up like Vienna Sausages. Even worse, my middle toe was bright red, probably infected.

      I hobbled around all day hoping I could bring the pain to submission though strength of will, my usual technique of self-medication, but I was unsuccessful. I just felt old and lame and helpless. This wasn’t the sort of injury I could walk my way through. I was miserable.

      Friday morning, I went to see my doctor. The minute he walked into the room and saw my foot he said, well there is obvious infection in that one toe. But your main problem is gout.

      Bummer. Gout. One of the most ancient of diseases; documented as far back as 350 BC by Hippocrates himself. Now I really felt old.

      The good news is, by Monday morning, six days after my flare-up, I seemed to be about 85% back to normal. I even walked the mile around our neighborhood ponds. On Wednesday I walked about three miles. Maybe the comeback trail is a real possibility?

      Of course, none of my complaints surprise God. He’s known all about me for a long time now. In fact, Psalm 139 says He planned each day of my life – He charted those days even before I was born. Every moment He knows where I am, and He both precedes and follows me and places His hand of blessing on my head. Who could whine or complain about treatment like that?

*   *   *   *   *

      In the movie, A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson (played by Robert Redford) was standing in line at a funeral waiting to speak to the widow, when a friend in line behind him tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Makes you think of slowing down, doesn’t it?”

      I remember hearing that line in the movie theater. I almost stood up and said aloud, “No, it makes me want to speed up!”

*   *   *   *   *

      When I approached the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, people asked how I was doing. And the truth: I was doing just fine. Dad died well. He left no accounts unsettled, whether financial, emotional, or family. He did what he loved best all the way to the end: cycling up to his last two weeks, and cracking jokes up to his last five days.

      Oliver Sacks wrote in his small but profound book, Gratitude, “When my time comes, I hope I can die in harness, as Francis Crick did.” (Crick died at 88 from colon cancer, still fully engaged in his most creative work all the way to the end.) I like this. Dying in harness sounds fun, adventurous, and fulfilling.

      Sacks left me wondering what dying in harness would look like for me. Does it mean I might die …

      … at my engineer desk, working on a problem, face pressed into my computer keyboard?

      … at some Whataburger booth, while writing in my journal? If so, I hope whatever I am writing is good and not stupid. I don’t want people to think my writing became so incoherent I committed suicide in the restaurant rather than keep trying.

      … on my bicycle? If so, I hope I have a heart attack and slip off into the barrow ditch, and not get blown away by some big truck while the driver is texting. And I hope I’m flying with a tailwind so at least I’ll be smiling.

      … while hiking? That would be great. Of course, it might be days before they find my body, which could be unpleasant for the finders.

      … while playing trombone? I usually play in public so it would be traumatic. Especially if I keeled over while on stage at church.

      … climbing the stairs in my office building? Again, it might be a long time before I am missed and even longer before I am located in a seldom-used stairwell. I suppose if they find my pickup abandoned in the parking garage someone would think to look in the stairs.

      … while teaching? It would be dramatic, that’s for sure, and it might leave emotional scars on my class. I would hope to go out while making a significant point.

      … while skiing? Crashing into a tree would be preferable to having a heart attack while riding the lift and leaving hundreds of people stranded while the ski patrol unloaded me from the chair.

      Sacks also wrote about his own father, who lived to age ninety-four, and who often said “the eighties had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective.”

      I recently opened my copy of Soul Salsa, by Leonard Sweet, to browse through it again. When I first read this book in 2005 I wrote some notes on the first page: “As I get older, I want to: lean forward not backward, be less dogmatic, default to grace, give away more money, time, energy, creativity, life, music, books, insight.” I was pleased that none of those wishes had diminished in the fifteen years since I first wrote them.

      Most developed world countries have accepted the chronological age of sixty-five years as a definition of elderly. So, at the moment I am writing this, I have fifteen more months of middle age to enjoy.

      The ability to change the future, and the freedom to keep exploring, comes with additional responsibility and obligation. The Apostle Paul admonished in 2 Corinthians 8:11, “Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. (NIV)” Maybe that is what staying in harness all the way to the end of life really means. We should stay engaged in the purpose and calling God has given to us, finishing as strong as we began.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32