I started a program today of trying to gain some more progress with my Parkinson’s using biofeedback. It was very interesting today sitting in a chair with electrodes stuck all over my head watching all these brain waves on a big screen that were coming from my brain. It was even more interesting to see how it all changed when I moved my leg or arm or had one of my Parkinson tremors take place. The fellow I am working with was super nice and seemed very excited about working with me and helping me. This method of dealing with Parkinson’s is brand new and I am being somewhat of a Guinea Pig in this study that I am now a part of. It was quite fascinating listening to the Neurologist explain how my brain worked and see the evidence of it working on the big screen. I thought of the verse in Psalms 139 that says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made by God”

I don’t do very much any more by myself. Life is all about relationships, and relationships are built stronger by time together. I get God’s Grace through others as I spend time with them, and others get God’s Grace from me when I spend time with them. That principle comes right from the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit together, one in essence and purpose, but still three personalities. We are created in God’s image and likeness so together with others is good. Humility is recognizing that I need others to succeed and be truly happy, and pride is saying I can do it by myself.

I wish that I had learned this principle earlier in my life. I spent so much time doing things by myself because I thought I would recover from my weariness from preaching quicker, and that is what I did for years, isolate myself. Now I recognize the truth about myself and how God’s principles really work.

By the way, several have asked about going with me up Mt Adams and my answer is yeh! You can do the Saturday one day climb or you can join me as I climb the mountains in two days.

The goal is to climb Mt Adams on August 8th this year. I climbed it for the first time way back in the summer 1965. Since then I climbed it just about every year up until 2012, and I have not climbed it since. That last time I climbed it was very difficult for me with my Parkinson’s being a big issue, and I decided that I was done climbing. I am not sure why I decided to give it a shot again this year other than stupidity based on forgetting all the issue the last time I climbed. I am going to try something this year that I have never done, and vowed as a young climber that I would never do. I am going to start climbing on Friday instead of Saturday and camp overnight at what is called the “Lunch Counter”, a flat spot about half way up the mountain where there isn’t usually any snow because it all gets blown off. It will require climbing with a back pack with a tent, a warm sleeping bag, some food and water, setting up a little camp, hoping not to freeze to death in the night, finishing the climb on Saturday morning, then breaking camp and coming down. The reason is to give myself more time to climb up and come down than one day allows, also to help get adjusted to the altitude by camping at 10,000 feet. As I said, I have never done this before thinking it wasn’t necessary for real climbers who could easily do it in one day without the hassle of packing up a bunch of stuff on your back then packing it back. The biggest negative is that it gets very cold on Mt Adams at night at 10,000 feet, at least that is what I am told. We will see. It should make for a good blog post anyway.

My Dad used to say, “just because you get old doesn’t mean you get wise, there are a lot of old fools running around”. There are 5 areas in my life in which I am terribly discontent, and one of those areas is the level of wisdom that I have, I want so much more than I have. Wisdom is knowing what to do and say in any situation, those words and actions that are most pleasing to God. Every morning I pray and ask God to give me more wisdom, “Dear Lord, please give me Your wisdom today so that I will know what to do and say in every situation, so that my life today pleases you, glorifies You, and I bear much fruit that is eternal. I pray that prayer every morning, but He isn’t just going to pour wisdom into my head like filling up a salt shaker, but what He will do is bring people into my life who are wiser than I am and who will share their wisdom with me if I am humble enough to ask for it.

Proverbs 1:3-5 To receive instruction in wise behavior,
A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

A lot of people my age stop seeking wisdom because they think they are wise enough, after all they are 71 years old. Solomon as a young man was the wisest man alive because he sought it diligently. He wrote the book of Proverbs as a wise young man. Then his heart became proud and he soon lost all the wisdom that he had, and as an old fool he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity”. It doesn’t seem reasonable that wisest man to ever live would die an old fool, but that is exactly what happened.

Much of our married life was devoted to raising our 8 kids. Our goal and desire was that they would be champions for Jesus, and that they would not cool off in their walk with Christ and backslide. Another major desire and goal was that they would all marry a spouse at least as devoted to following and serving the Lord as they were? A verse that is one on my life verses now at this stage in my life is

3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

This last week Patty and went to Twin Falls, Idaho and visited our son Seth and his new bride Amie and their 4 kids. Amie’s husband was killed while riding a bicycle and hit by a car, and she has managed her life and raised her kids by herself for several years, and Seth, the last of our 8 kids to get married, was 35 years old and pretty set in his ways of doing things, so I wondered how they would adjust and do in their marriage. I anticipated that there would be some significant struggles as they adjusted to living together. We had a wonderful time with them and we both enjoyed getting to know our new grandkids a bit better.

We have 8 kids, 6 son-in-laws, 2 daughter-in-laws, and 27 grandchildren. So far all of them are walking with the Lord and their marriages are doing well. In our day and age that is a major miracle, and as the verse says,

3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

When I was in grade school learning about early American history our teacher told a story about an early explorer named Ponce De Leon whose efforts at exploring the new world were motivated out of finding the “Fountain of Youth”, which was a spring whose waters would check aging and renew health in those who drank from it. One of my favorite movies, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was about “The Holy Grail” the cup that Jesus supposedly drank from during the last supper and that Joseph of Arimathea used to catch the blood of Jesus as He hung from the cross. This cup was supposed to be supernatural and whoever drank water from it remained eternally young. The popular movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” also revolved around the discovery and control of the “fountain of youth”.

The Bible has several activities that God loves so much that He blesses those who do them with good health and long life. First on the list because it is mentioned 16 time in the Bible, twice as many times as second place, 3rd place and 4th place put together is, “Honor your father and your mother”.

Ephesians 6:2-3 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.

My Dad had problems and quirks like any other human being, but I don’t think I have ever told a story or any other information about my Dad that was anything but honoring. There are other factors that contribute to our long life or early departure, especially the sovereignty of Gods but everything else being equal this is a big deal to God.

The Apostle John in his last Epistle says in 3 John 2, that our physical health is an outgrowth of our spiritual health. The healthier our soul is the healthier our body will be.

1 Peter 3:10-11 For, The one who desires a long life, to love and see good days, Must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

Talk nice and you will live longer is another principle that is repeated in the Bible often by God so that we would be sure and see it.

There are another half dozen principles through out the Bible that work together with the ones already mentioned to create a “proneness to health” that God uses to reward us and to motivate us to good living.

Three time a day we put a foreign substance inside of our bodies that is supposed to energize us, and provide the nutrients to renew our bodies and minds to continue to function. But obviously if we ate dirt, or coal, and drank gasoline we wouldn’t do well, those substances would be basically poison to our bodies and kill us. Our daughter Sherri had lots of foods that she was allergic to and several times she almost died in the hospital because of the food that we gave her as a baby. January 1st 2019 I decided to quit eating all refined sugar and wheat products. My reason was to help in my goal to lose weight. After only 2 weeks my Parkinson’s had improved incredibly, to the point that I cut my medication in half. That was a very nice surprise and made my life so much easier. I have not eaten any of either for almost a year and a half with a couple of binges which the result of those couple pieces of cherry pie convinced me further that I was so much healthier without them. So now I jokingly say to people that I have cut out the 4 white poison powders, heroin, cocaine, sugar, and flour. I have often thought about what else I may be eating that is causing problems in my body and mind. One of my new goals that I have been reading about is intermittent fasting. I am going to experiment with various lengths of fasting, also with the frequency of the fasts, and with partial fasts where I eat only a few simple foods. There is a lot of quackery in this area so I will research thoroughly and experiment and keep good records of the results. It takes a great amount of self-control to exercise an hour every day, and it took a lot more to cut out sugar and wheat products, but this intermittent fasting thing I am anticipating that it will come close to maxing out my self-control level. Hopefully all of this will work on my character and build my self-control level to super human levels.

Of all the things that will keep us from feeling or thinking our age exercise is the most recognized as true. Because of my Parkinson’s I have done a ton of reading and research on the benefits of exercise and it is clear that those who exercise will feel better, have more energy, think clearer and have much fewer health issues. It takes a lot of self-control to exercise as much as is needed so very few do. The health benefits are so obvious to me that I have had no problem staying faithful to my routines. I have discovered some key principles over the last 8 years to exercising diligently.

1. The best exercise for me is riding a stationary bike with enough speed and resistance to get my heart rate to 120 beats per minute and to keep it there for one hour. Anything helps, but I don’t notice much difference in how I feel until I hit the one hour mark consistently. An hour is magic, the difference between 45 minutes and 60 minutes is huge. The cool thing about a recumbent stationary bike is that I can read while I ride, or listen to sermons or watch a basketball game on my IPad, and the time goes by very fast. You can buy a stationary recumbent bike on line for under $200 if you get one without all the bells and whistles. My bike also has elliptical arms on it so I work on my arms for 15 minutes as well in preparation for rowing my rubber raft down the Colorado River this summer. I have zero joint issues with riding my bike, my knees, hips, or feet never bother me from riding.

2. Only one rest day a week works best for me. As long as I ride at least an hour 6 days a week I never get sore muscles, but if I miss more than one day I get sore the first day after missing the second day, and sore muscles is an added discouragement from faithful exercising. Also if I ride 6 days a week I develop the habit of riding and once a habit is formed it is so much easier to be faithful to this difficult discipline.

3. Very few people have developed a routine of exercising that truly is strenuous enough that it will do a lot of good physically and mentally. It takes a great deal of self-control to keep this working in our life and most start losing self-control as they get older. The key to overcoming our loss in this area is to recruit people who will hold us accountable ruthlessly. It usually takes a number of people to help get us into an established routine. It is great if those who are nagging us are dedicated exercisers themselves.

4. I go on a long bicycle trip each summer to keep my motivation up for the long winter months of riding indoors. The trips are usually at least 30 days in length and several thousand miles long. There isn’t anything that I do that comes close to making me feel as young and energetic as this annual event does. Riding outside, seeing the scenery, carrying everything on the bike, camping each night, planning the trip is all so much fun and invigorates me in amazing ways. I usually lose 3 or 4 pounds of weight each week while on the trip even though I eat a lot. Also my blood pressure drops significantly, my pulse goes down, and a number of other health issues improve noticeably. You are welcome to go with me this summer if you want. We are going down the coast just north of San Francisco, then we are heading north east to Idaho and then back to Jefferson. We are leaving May 27th and will be back on July 7th, and will travel about 2000 miles.

Like a car our body starts wearing out as the miles start piling up to the point that we eventually die. There are some things that we can do to slow down the process and increase the total miles that we can operate. My Dad used to say that if I would change the oil every 3,000 miles in my car, and tune up the engine every 6 months that the total miles would be much more than if haphazard maintenance was practiced.

We wear out both mentally and physically, and the last years of our life are often very unproductive, which is sad because we have years of experience and wisdom, and we have the potential to be a powerful and positive influence on others. The things that will make a huge difference in prolonging our life and the vitality of our life are the very things that most of us older people naturally avoid, accelerating the aging process. The first principle that I wrote about yesterday is continually doing new things, learning new skills, and learning new information.

The second principle is actually the most powerful of the 6 I learned about according to the studies and research of the fellow I listened to on a podcast yesterday in the airport while waiting for my flight to Boise, Idaho. The second principle or practice is to spend a lot of time with people socially, talking and interacting with them. It isn’t just normal chit chat, but working hard and thinking how to be gracious in our speech in order to maintain unity and peace with those we are spending time with. The most powerful part of our conversation with others that stimulates both our mind and our body to renew itself is when we consider and think all of the time we are listening and talking on how to bless and enhance the lives of those we are with. All of the time that we are with people we are self-coaching ourselves on how to become more persuasive graciously, how to be more influential in our behavior and speech, in order to be a reason that those we are with grow and improve their lives. The natural thing that many older people do is to isolate themselves more and more because social interactions with people wears them out and tends to irritate them. God created us for community and isolation greatly accelerates the aging process. Another tendency of older people is to become more opinionated in their views and beliefs and less concerned about offending others with the way they express those opinions and views, and the resulting conflicts and tension stimulates the inclination to withdraw and spend less and less time in social interaction with others.

As I was listening and then writing about this principle I was reminded of a basic principle in the Bible, “If we give to others, God will give to us, what we give to others God will give to us, and how much we give to others determines how much God will give to us”.

I was listening to a lecture online by a guy who was talking about how to get old on the calendar but not mentally or physically. It was very enlightening and fascinating as he related the results of studies and experiments with old codgers. There were half a dozen key principles. The first one was to regularly do new things, try new things, learn new things, go different places, and have new experiences. It helps if the new experiences have a risk factor to them that makes the adrenaline pump for awhile, like sky diving. It also helps if the new experience requires learning new skills and requires a lot of mental preparation and learning. Old people naturally tend towards the opposite which accelerates the aging process physically and mentally.

I have gone on a few white water rafting trips on the Deschutes over the years with groups from our church. I have always been a passenger on the raft, but this year I am going to run the oars on a trip down the Rogue River in May and the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in August, and this last week I bought my own 15 foot rubber raft, complete with a frame, oars, dry boxes, and a yeti cooler. Now I am a bonafide rafter 😀. With purple tubes and a red frame it is going to be prettiest raft on the river, and I was thinking of painting hearts all around it on the tubes just to attract a little more attention.

It is interesting how growth as a person is all interrelated. We can grow in our character, in our spiritual life, in our mental capacity, in our physical abilities, and in our relational intelligence and skill, and when we grow in one area all the other areas are influenced upward as well.