The older you get, the older you get.

If that sounds like nonsense to you, don’t be too quick to dismiss this statement. I have in front of me a period Life table. True it is a few years old and applies to US conditions, which are a tat less rosy than Canadian statistics, but that’s all I could find, and it affirms my point that “The older you get, the older you get.”

Here is the proof of my premise. In the good old USA in 2005 a male baby at birth had a life expectancy of 74.81 years, while a female one had 79.75 years, a difference of almost 5 years. Canadians, thanks to their country-wide health insurance, do a bit better. If we live till 65, men still live, on average, till 81.73, and women till 84.5 years, thus men have gained almost 7 years since birth and women just less than 5. It gets even better: at age 70, life expectancy is 83.3 and 85.7. Thus again slowly the men are gaining on the women. That trend continues, narrowing the gap at 75 to 85.26 and 87.24, and almost getting even in life expectancy at 85, with a difference of a bit more than a year, at 90.41 and 91.54. I should add, perhaps, that a man lives an average of 15 years after becoming impotent. So, keep it up, you guys. Moses, at 120, had still excellent eye-sight and was still going strong, his natural force- including sexual drive- unabated. (Deut. 34:7).

So there you have it: the older you get, the older you get.

But….Yes, there is always a ‘but.’ Getting older comes at a price, a steep monetary one for the nation as a whole. Scores more of seniors mean huge tax increases in the near future. With a growing number of aging people and with fewer workers entering the economy, tax dollars to support our generous old age allowances and the increasing medical costs are becoming harder and harder to come by. The current stimulus injections, already causing immense deficits on all government levels, will make matters worse, especially in the USA and the European countries where governments have not been as prudent as in Canada.

So what are the real ‘old age’ numbers? I am a great one for statistics: in 1900, 4.1 percent of U.S. citizens were older than 65, but by 2000 that amount had jumped to 12.6 percent; by 2030, 20 percent of us will be in that category. That means that if you are approaching 65 you will live to see 2030 when one in five will be a senior citizen. Canada is not ready for that, even though it is in better shape than most other industrial countries. Although it is not a bible text, nevertheless it is true that “God helps those who help themselves”. By this I mean that only you can take it upon yourself to become and stay in good shape, and so grow older without resorting to becoming dependent on waning government assistance, because next to rapidly growing pension outlay, the cost of medical care is also growing exponentially, making it certain that our welfare state will not be able to continue in its present state.

It is simply impossible to keep on conducting business as usual. Circumstances have changed dramatically. Look what’s been happening: wages are flat or declining, consumer debt is up in the stratosphere, and job security is disappearing, while our natural habitat is suffering and the air is being saturated with our carbon deposits.

In other words: the old track is broken. The new track has fewer jobs, less income, larger deficits, increasing hardship and greater weather volatility. This simply means that the current economy can never “recover”, can never go back to where it was before the crash and before the environment was relatively pure. So instead of asking when the recovery will start, we should be asking what the new economy will be and when the new economy will begin. Expect the unexpected.  

However, there is a lot to be thankful for, and a lot we can do to cope with the future. First the personal part. For me, there are definitely great blessings of being older. For one, I am at peace. Tranquility is the word for me. No more battles to wage, no more arguments to win or lose. Let go, let God. I can’t solve the world’s problems, so I don’t get worked up as I used to do. I have learned to accept the unalterable. Also, who knows, maybe I am not always right in my opinions. That’s still a hard one for me.

All five of our children are doing well, while our grandchildren – we have seven granddaughters and 6 grandsons – are in no hurry to get married, something I can understand as well.  I recognize that being single is different than when I grew up. I also see much more clearly the interconnectedness of us humans with the entire creation. I love my vegetable garden – and hate to see the chipmunks destroy my beets for no apparent reason. I pray for my trees and am grateful that my apple- trees bear abundantly. I treasure my bike and often pray while pedaling on my daily trek to the village, almost 6 km away, along a busy highway to get my Globe and Mail and other daily needs.  

How can we enjoy life, even in old age? A recent article in the Scientific American gives a few pointers how to stay well, which, by the way is also the Christian things to do. The great love commandment includes the holy duty to love our neighbors as ourselves. To love takes effort. To love one self means to purposely keep fit. Says the article, “Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.”

It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor. Healthy older adults can do much more than had been assumed even a few years ago. Now middle age can go well into the 80′s.

If you want to stay alert, read, and limit T.V. to the minimum. If you want to stay healthy: walk, bike, run, mow the lawn, not on a riding mower, but a push one, preferably an electric one. All others spout out pollutants, and lawn mowers are the worst for the environment, especially your own lungs. I would not be surprised that there is a connection between prostate problems and gas-powered mowers. Even moderate levels of physical activity can limit declines in brain function. The best kind of exercise is aerobic, a sustained movement, such as in running and biking, something that makes you sweat: it improves verbal and nonverbal memory and gives you new ideas. My best thoughts come when I run, which I do 2 times per week.

Basically there is no such thing as being old as long as we stay active, socially involved, eat well – not too much – and consume genuine food, preferably home-grown, like our grandparents did, visit with friends and relatives, stay optimistic, agreeable and open to new experiences.

Remember, the older we get, the older we get. Do it gratefully and graciously and God will bless you.

Bert Hielema was born in 1928, lives in Tweed, Ont., is the sole tenor in a 12 voice church choir and keeps a blog: http://hielema.ca.blog/. He can be reached at hielema@allstream.net

Year 9-17

For me life is interesting, even though Bell Tel. sometimes makes matters miserable for me. I am in this technologically advanced country on dial internet service. Can’t get wireless, and too many trees make it impossible to sight a relay tower. So I am stuck with grandma Bell. The connection between our house and the highway goes dead when snow melts or rain falls, while the line to the village – 5 km away- suffers from nobody knows what- perhaps squirrels or black flies or raccoons eating the wires, giving me p.p. internet service. The p.p. you can either read as pretty poor or as a shorter version where the first ‘p’ is exactly that, and also another 4 letter word, conveying the same meaning.

But life is good and even afterlife gets good publicity nowadays.

Afterlife? Yes, life after death, is very much in the news nowadays. Perhaps not surprisingly the typical American believes not in evolution or global warming but does in Doomsday and an afterlife, in heaven, of course, wearing white robes and clutching golden harps, I presume.  The average American – not Canadian – adult sees the earth as a 10,000 year old evil matter whose substance may be abused – hence the denial of global warming – and sees Doomsday coming and regards afterlife a heaven-bound certainty. Yes, in these dark days they expect Doomsday to come knocking at the door anytime now, abetted by the combined crush of economic collapse, peak oil and global warming, the latter not human-induced, of course,  but an act of God. This trinity of evil will, they believe, be so severe that society as we know it will never recover, our lifestyles be seriously compromised and survival become a life-or-death issue.

I can back this up with statistics. The surveys vary a bit, but for the longest time, something in the order of 90% of Americans say they believe in God and an afterlife in heaven.

It’s now been 200 years since Charles Darwin came up with his evolution theory. I think that he was partly right. Of course I believe that God exists – as did Darwin – and created the cosmos. I also believe that this took place millions if not billions of years ago – with God one day is as a thousand or million years and a billion years as one day – so that, since that original concepts took shape, humans and animals have gone through development stages (don’t we all): what we see around us is too convincing to assume otherwise. Yet two-thirds of all Americans believe that the earth was created 10,000 years ago.

The church-going crowd over there is mostly Republicans. Among them only 21% think that we are at fault causing climate change. That too fits in with the heaven-thing. To them “earth is a foreign strand, wilderness waste” quoting a hymn. In other words, most Americans don’t think their use of fossil fuels causes this Greenhouse Effect. They blame nature.

Fortunately there are still a lot of religious people who think otherwise. On February 21 Globe and Mail had an interesting exchange between Ian Brown and Jean Vanier. I love Jean Vanier, and I have many of his books.

In that article both mention life after death. Neither mentioned ‘heaven’, which, seen as a human destination, is a very unbiblical concept. Let me give one example: The last verse in the book of Daniel says, “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”  Jesus too sees death as ‘a restful sleep’. That inheritance, by the way, is a cleaned up earth.

The church is wrong when it portrays heaven as the after-life abode, a lie the Devil has successfully sold to organized religion, weakening the resolve of church people to whole-heartedly care for the earth.

Vanier writes that, in thinking of life-after-death, he visualizes “it will be a wonderful moment of peace, of joy, of ecstasy of love, a fulfillment of love. It will be more wonderful than anything we could have imagined.” He repeatedly mentions the beauty of the earth, which reminds me that “God made no junk and will not junk what he has made.” That’s why we must now live so that when the renewal comes we will have no trouble making that transition.

So how will it all end? I don’t refer to Doomsday – the Bible calls it “The Day of the Lord” – but I do mean the current economic and environmental crisis. If the majority of Americans deny any direct responsibility for Climate Change, then our planet will certainly keep on deteriorating at a rapid rate, with China and India, taking their cue from America, continuing to pollute.

So, indeed, the American collective psyche definitely has a Doomsday mentality, enhanced by their heaven-heresy.

Oh, yes, we live in interesting times.

This column can be seen at http://hielema.ca/blog/, and is regularly viewed in more than 25 countries, with the USA in the lead, followed by Canada, the Netherlands, Russia and China.

Year 9-16

Is nothing sacred anymore? Is everything to be challenged? A doctor-friend told us years ago that since plants today are grown in poorer soil, they contain fewer vitamins, fewer minerals and fewer anti-toxins, so he advised us to supplement our diet with all these health aids. Now I read that swallowing these supplements is basically useless, a waste of money since several responsible studies have shown that extra vitamins, at least in pill form, don’t prevent chronic disease or prolong life.

Of course everyone needs essential nutrients that the body can’t produce on their own. Due to lack of Vitamin C sailors in their wind-driven ships got scurvy and the Royal Navy fed them limes: hence the name Limeys for Brits. A lack of vitamin D can cause rickets and all sorts of diseases can be prevented, apparently, by chewing or swallowing D, the sudden wonder drug. It is now claimed that high doses of it could lower risk for cancer and other chronic diseases. So do we need some vitamins but not others?   

I was reminded of all this when last week I saw CBC’s Peter Mansbridge interview President Obama in the White House. You may wonder what the connection is between Obama and vitamins. Well, my brain is a jolly jumper: it was something that Obama said that triggered this train of thought. When Peter Mansbrige asked him about the obnoxious Oil Sands his simple reply was: “Technology will find an answer.”  “AHA”, I thought, “there’s where Obama comes from.”

Most of us see the world and our bodies sometimes as well, as a sort of machine we can manipulate so that it will keep on functioning. There’s no doubt that Technology rules our world. And here is where the vitamin connection comes in: it flashed through my mind whether the use of technology too could backfire just as the use of vitamin tablets, also a product of technology, suffered a setback. Maybe there too we are wrong to place all our bets in technology.  

When in Ottawa, both Harper and Obama sang from the same song sheet, aspiring to device ‘clean technology’, fully convinced that sequestering the CO2 and burying it is possible: technology will save us. But will it?

Things out there aren’t so simple: for every freight car of coal gone up in smoke – the biggest source of carbon dioxide- CO2 –  and the main fuel for electricity in the world and the main source of Green House Gases – three freight cars of CO2 are released, which then must be captured and transported to a safe place underground. Can it be done?  Would it not be a lot easier if we reduced energy use? No, that’s apparently not an option because “our way of life may not be compromised,” Obama said during his election campaign.

Back to vitamin pills. A much better way to robust bodies is to go back to our grandparents’ diets: lots of nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables, which will lower rates of heart disease and cancer. The catch: their produce was grown on organic soil. Simple solution: go home-grown: produce your own 100 feet diet. Michael Pollan, starts his “In Defense of Food” with: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer what we should eat in order to be maximally healthy.”

But how about technology? I  know, it has its benefits. I love my computer. I spent more time with my laptop than with any other tool, but it also has drawbacks. The current financial disasters can directly be blamed on computer technology gone amok. The hedge funds, the disastrous derivatives, the fatal financial fakeries were only possible because of the World-Wide-Web and the simulations suggested by enhanced computer power. What we see at work today is an aspect of what Joseph Tainter describes in his 1988 book, “The Collapse of Complex Societies.”

There are other downsides to technology as well. The immense population growth is owed primarily to the growth of carbon-based technology. Also, for all its blessings technology has accelerated the disappearance of social taboos and globally caused the demise of native cultures and rural communities and has spread pornography everywhere. Also, due to its indiscriminate use of technology, China has become one of the world’s largest polluters.    

The direct result of the current collapse of the financial system has been the rise of government influence. The State is now the Banker of last resort. If the past is any indication, this new phenomenon could have disastrous consequences as it will boost bureaucracy, introduce stifling regulations and halt creative innovation. It certainly will lead to greater complexity, exponentially increasing the dangers of societal collapse.

The word ‘vitamin’ has as its root the Latin word ‘vita’ which means ‘life’. We must use ‘technology’ wisely so that it does not endanger ‘vita’, ‘life’ the source of all that lives because it is beyond challenge that all life is sacred.