“Still Alive at Fifty-Five”
A Sermon by Charles Blustein Ortman,
September 18, 2005
It was early spring of 1968—my senior year of high school. The nation was torn apart by assassinations and the war. And at the same time, there was great hope in the air: hope that things could be different and that the younger generation, of which I was a part, would play a vital role in the creation of a newer, better day. The revolution was at hand and its outcome promised racial justice, ecological sustainability, and world peace.
These were important themes to me, even then. They provided the background and the environment of my mostly inexperienced life. But they aren’t, at least directly, what this sermon is about.
After all, I was only seventeen years old. What was of equal, if not of more importance to me, then, was girls. Not just girls in general, but THE girl. I wanted to find THE girl whom I would one day marry so that we could just go ahead and get our blissful relationship underway as soon as possible. I wanted world peace, I wanted a very romantic life, and I wanted to know how it was all going to turn out. Shortly after I started dating a girl named Suzi during that senior year, I was pretty sure that I had found THE girl. Fortunately though, that’s not how things worked out, but it was a delightful fantasy that helped us/me through that interminable final year of high school.
This is all by way of providing the circumstances for the story I do want to tell you this morning—which, by the way, I chose for this date back in April. Actually, I decided I would tell it now, if in fact I were able to be here today at all. You see, this is sort of a coming age sermon...
So, it was early spring back in ‘68. I remember the evening well. Suzi and I were on a double date with some friends, Tom and Karen, who, by the way, did indeed go on to get married after college. On this particular evening, none of us were flush with cash. So, we ordered pizza and took it to the rec room in the basement of Karen’s parents’ home. There, we settled in for an evening of eating, chatting, some ping-pong, and whatever other form of home entertainment might catch our fancy.
“I know!” Karen proclaimed at some point. “We have a Ouija board. Let’s get it out and see what happens. It’ll be fun.” We all thought that was a very cool idea. For the next hour or so, we sat around a table, fingers somehow joined in linkage with the pointer.
We asked all kinds of questions: Who we might marry? When that might happen? How many kids would we have? What would we do for a living? (I’m sure that the answer Unitarian Universalist Minister was never conjured by the assembled spirits in that Roman Catholic basement.). We asked everything we could think of, and we took the answers we received with a grain of salt—unless, of course, they agreed with our preconceived notion of things and then we gladly accepted them as affirmation. Mostly we laughed and had a good time together.
Finally, toward the end, I was feeling particularly bold and I asked the most foolish question of all: “How old will I be when I die?” I wanted to take it back as soon as I’d said it. I remember that the pointer didn’t hesitate at all, but effortlessly glided first to the five, then to the four. I would live to the age of 54. For a 17 year old, 54 is light-years away. Still, we all sort of gasped just a bit. Then we tried to comfort ourselves with some rationalizations. By 54, I brazenly claimed, I probably would have already achieved all or most of what I’d have wanted to accomplish in my life. I might not have achieved world peace, but by I’d have probably done all that I could toward it. Fifty-four seemed substantially, but not outrageously old. Death at that age would allow me the dignity to check out before I became terribly feeble-bodied and feeble-minded.
In truth, it didn’t feel great, but, hey, I still had a whole lot of time left and 17 year-olds don’t spend much time thinking about dying. I tucked the memory of the experience away, as best I could, but through the years, I’d think about it—somewhat but not too uneasily—from time to time.
Over the last few years though, I started thinking about the Ouija board prediction a little more often. Not that I wanted to, it would just sort of pop up of its own accord. Still, though, I’d conclude with the thought that if there were any validity to the prediction, there was nothing I could do about it anyway. Most likely, though, there was no validity at all. And then a few things happened.
We’re up to the point now, just two years ago, when I was tipping the scales at 230 pounds. That’s about the same time that my blood pressure reached an alarming 210/100. I didn’t want the Ouija board prediction to become a self-fulfilled prophecy, I thought. That’s when I began taking blood pressure medicine and got on the South Beach Diet. With very little medication, my blood pressure came under control and without the 55 pounds that I’d eventually lost, well, I’d gotten myself into much better shape.
Then, a year ago this past spring, about four months before my 54th birthday, I went in for a routine physical exam. A few days later, I received three phone messages within an hour. “There is certainly no emergency,” each message began. “But would you call the office as soon as possible?” Some of the findings in my blood tests required further testing for explanation. A few days later (and after one most unpleasant evening), I was anesthetized for an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. When I came to after they were over, I was given five brand new diagnoses that were of little consequence. Then I was told that a biopsy was being sent to another lab for further study because the doctor didn’t like something he’d seen.
I know that many of you in this room have had similar experiences. I’ve been with some of you as you’ve gone through them. Sometimes, when the results come back they are a relief; sometimes not. In the meantime, you wait for the results and you just don’t know. Not knowing isn’t a very comfortable place to be. Okay, I thought, the Ouija’s prophecy is a possibility. This could be the beginning of the end. If it is though, what do I want to do about that? What do I want to do with my life in the remaining time that I have left? These seemed like very real and pertinent questions.
The answers came surprisingly quick, I knew I wanted to enjoy everything and everyone in my life as much as I possibly could. I knew that I hadn’t come anywhere near doing all that I might to promote world peace and the environment and to undo the scourges of oppression. I found my life and nearly everything in it to be incredibly precious with a very visceral sense of that preciousness, and I wanted to enjoy it; I wanted to use it to make a difference as much as I possibly could. The results of the biopsy came back several days later. Medication was prescribed and a month later the H-Pylori bacteria that had eventually been identified was quite gone from my system.
I had dodged the bullet, but it had grazed my consciousness, stinging me into a greater awareness of my life. Over the last year, there have been some other little things here and there that have made me pause and think, “Hmmm, the Ouija board’s prediction…could it still be true?” And the answer has always been decisive, “Maybe, maybe not!”
I never really believed that I would die at the age of 54. But I could never help but to think that it was certainly a possibility. In the end, that possibility has done more to enrich my life than I could have imagined.
Two weeks ago yesterday, on September 3rd at 1:11 in the afternoon, I turned fifty-five! I am still alive at 55! At that moment, my wife Judy and I were hiking along the Black River in one of my very favorite places in New Jersey, Hacklebarney State Park. We stopped along the trail and hugged and cheered. The curse of the Ouija board, if there ever had been one, was broken! The gift of the curse I’m sure though, will continue to serve me well however old I might live to be.
One of the covenant groups here at the church, A Year to Live, spent this past year having chosen to undergo a similar kind of experience. Over the course of the year they attempted to live out their experiences as though it was the last time each of them would move through the seasons of the year. And each month they’d come together to talk about what that was like with one another. I have spoken with many of the members of that group, which was led by Silke Springorum. To a person they have each reported that their shared experience has provided them with a level of appreciation for living that they had never reached before. I think I know what they mean.
The largest lesson in all of this for me is that the fear of loss is far more crippling than is the acceptance of the inevitable truth that one day we will each lose – even our lives. Clinging to life in fear will always stifle its potential. Embracing life though, in the full acceptance of its finitude, frees us to engage in it more completely, frees us to appreciate the rich potential that is ours or, I trust, is available to us in every moment in which we have breath; frees us to savor the preciousness of everyone, everything and every cause that together form the content, the context and the meaning of our lives.
None of us ever earned the right to be alive. Life is a gift. It is given to us by the universe, by Life’s want to be, the Spirit of life. It is a gift that was given to us to use as we see fit. It is a gift, as the 19th Century Unitarian minister Eleanor Gordon said, that we were given in order to find its meaning. Coming-of-age, I suspect, has to do with acceptance of that gift and our capacity to respond to it with awe, and gratitude, and service to its source, however we might envision that source to be, and for however long we have to use it.
That’s really the whole nut of what I want to say this morning. Life is too short to waste in anxious clinging and anticipation of its end. And it is far too precious for us not to attend with very close attention to the details which make up its content and purpose and meaning.
So I’ll call this message this morning my birthday gift to you. If you find something in it of use or of value, then I’m glad of it. If you don’t, I’ll hope that you won’t be too hasty in discarding it. You might want to just tuck it away somewhere. There may be a time down the road when it might be of better use, or when its value, if it has any, more evident.
Even though I’ve made it past 54, I know very well that my death will indeed eventually come around. I truly hope that when it does, I will be able to face it with gratitude for what has been. And if you all should happen to survive me, I have two requests for my memorial service. The first is that you include the hymn we sang earlier, “Just as Long as I Have Breath.” It’s one of my favorites for memorial services. I love the line, “If they ask what I did best, tell them I said yes to life.” The second request is that you use one of my favorite readings by George Bernard Shaw. I offer it here as a reminder to us all.
“This is the true joy in life…being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one…being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy…I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it what I can.
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations.”
In closing, there are a couple of things I could never have imagined when I was 17 years old. First, I had no idea—could never have imagined—how just how young 54 really is. Second, I could never have dreamed that my life would be as full, as meaningful and as rich as it has turned out to be. I am ever grateful for that gift and to all of you for being such a significant part in it.
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