Lessons from my old age

1. I don’t remember becoming absent minded.
2. I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.
3. It’s hard to make a comeback, when you haven’t been anywhere.
4. If all is not lost, where is it?
5. It is easier to get old than it is to get wiser.
6. Aging isn’t for wimps.
7. It’s not hard to meet expenses, they’re everywhere.
8. My idea of a balance diet is a cookie in each hand.
9. It has come to my attention that too much comes to my attention.

Beautiful Art

The Musee d'Orsay in Paris is a wonderful place of beauty. It is home to some of the finest pieces of art ever painted. Not being a student of art, I was personally astonished at how many of the works on display there I actually recognized. And I was a little overwhelmed that the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Paul Cezanne were all hanging in the same museum.

But the greatest personal surprise, and source of great joy, was a painting by Theo Van Rysselberghe entitled Man at the Tiller, 1892. Catching the blue and white hues and reflections of light and sea, the painting of a sea captain guiding his ship through stormy water is magnificent even when viewed from a distance. And yet when you are within a few feet of the work, you realize that the artist had painted literally thousands of tiny "dots" to compose the scene. It's hard to imagine the amount of time and effort it took to produce such a work. What amazing gifts God has given to men.