DIKKON EBERHART
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Psalm 90

4/20/2017

8 Comments

 
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Dikkon Eberhart

I am seventy years old.  


In the Bible, the Psalmist is usually King David.  However, Psalm 90 is attributed differently than usual.  It is identified as “A Prayer of Moses – the man of God.” 
Moses tells us in Psalm 90:10 that seventy years is our human allotment.  The King James Version of the Bible elegantly renders seventy years into English as--three score years and ten. 

Moses goes on to suggest that, by reason of strength, we humans might reach eighty years.  But, he reminds us, that extra decade should be understood realistically for what it is, for, as he states, human life is “a span of toil and trouble: they [the years] are soon gone, and we fly away.”     

The baby in the picture is Devar Collins Stanley.  He’s eleven days old.  He’s still got a long way to go.  

Devar is Channa’s and my new grandson.  He’s the fourth child of one of our daughters and her husband.

Devar was a big baby at birth, and he’s already regained his birth weight and added two ounces. 

Good lookin’, ain’t he?



‘Nuff of the proud grandpa stuff. 



                           ***

Here’s what else I want to say. 

I was born seventy years ago, in the year 1946.  Because of my behavior with each of our grandchildren—including Devar—I suspect that many grandparents muse as I do upon the births of their grandchildren, wondering what the world will be like when this brand new, yelling baby reaches the age that the grandparents themselves have attained.  

My maternal grandparents were Charles and Magdalena Butcher, and I know they mused this way about me because my mother told me that they did.  My paternal grandparents would have mused this way, too, I suspect, except they both died before I was born.  (Sadly, my sole relationship with them is through my dad’s poetry.) 

So today I’m focused on the year 2087, for Devar. 



                                ***

What will the year 2087 have become for seventy-year-old Devar Collins Stanley, if he is blessed to attain his allocated three score years and ten? 


I haven’t the faintest notion.  (No, I do.  But I’ll get to that below.)


                                 ***

When I was young and sitting on my grandmother’s lap, she used to enchant me with recitations of the technical
increases she had lived through during her time.  Can you believe it?  When she was a girl there weren’t any airplanes or radios, and even cars were just toys for rich people. 

Also, though, she bemoaned the decreases she observed during her years.

Particularly she noted the decrease of fundamental knowledge of American and western culture, that was evident to her as her years ran on. Can you believe it? When she was in school, she and everyone else memorized entire sections of books and whole poems and famous speeches and founding documents and knew by heart the big events of western history…and also, she would admire, using the basis of their thorough knowledge, they knew how to discuss these things, too.


                                 ***

When my grandparents mused about me, their new grandson, in 1946 and looked forward to 2017, what did they imagine the year 2017 would have become for me?

I haven’t the faintest notion. 

Of course, I have my own notion of what the year 2017 has become for me, now that I am here. 


There have been great advances during my seventy years—for example, technical, medical, explorational—some of which my grandparents might not even have understood in concept.  Just the same, there have been further decreases in knowledge of—and even respect for the idea of—western culture, which has led to inability, because of lack of knowledge, to discuss it even rationally. 


                              ***

Here my point.  For Devar, during his possible three score years and ten, there will be great events, some of which will be determined by commentators to be advancements, some others of which will be determined by commentators to be disasters.  That’s just how it is.  The total of the up compared with the total of the down? 

I haven’t the faintest notion.                                   


                                ***  


I do have one notion about Devar, however, of which I am certain on the basis not only of belief but of evidence.  

During his three score years and ten, if he devotes himself to his life on the basis that the God of the universe, its creator and redeemer, is in active and personal search for him in order to bring him into a loving relationship, then he will be blessed, irrespective of the what ups and downs his time in history experiences.      


Along with Moses, Devar might become a seventy-year-old man who says, as Moses does, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”  Psalm 10:14, ESV. 

…and that’s the very same Moses who already acknowledged, just four verses earlier, that life is tough. 

Now, here’s one more notion I have about Devar, and about all our other grandchildren, extant and as they may appear.  When you’re a child, three score years and ten looks endless!  When you’re there, not so much. 

Moses suggests you may get four score years, if you have strength not only of body but of character (that latter part is editorializing by me, your grandfather).  But you have good genes, and that may help you as well. 

That grandmother of mine from whom you descend?   She mused about things in the world until two weeks short of her one hundred second birthday.  That father of mine, the poet?  He mused about things in the world until three months after his one hundred first birthday. 

Charge on!

​And may you be blessed. 

8 Comments
Ann Gillespie
4/21/2017 09:43:57 am

Always enjoy your in depth meditations Dikkon. I too, remember my Grandmother sharing with me all the technological advances made in her lifetime.
Like you, we contemplate where & what our grandkids will be experiencing in the days & years ahead. And, like you, we pray that God draws each of them to Himself & that they will walk close to Him!
Congrats, Blessings & our Love to you Both

Reply
Dikkon
4/21/2017 02:39:30 pm

Thank you, Ann. Thanks for liking my meditations. Sharing them with you and Floyd, and hearing yours back, is one of the great memories of our lives in Maine (or in Florida, or wherever we run into you).

And thank you for your prayers for Devar. Roz is fine, and Channa and I have had about two solid weeks of intense grandparenting. The other children lived with us for four days after Devar's birth, and then we have spent most of all our days since they went home at their house helping out.

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Elizabeth Moffat
4/21/2017 04:19:47 pm

What a wonderful way to learn of the arrival of Devar! Please deliver our congratulations and joy to those excellent parents. Devar shall be added to the prayers for all our 'great ' grands. (At three score and ten, we shall sadly not know the other kind of 'greats'). I hope he will hear from you on your knee about the historical, last collective cousin reunion. In the meantime, welcome to the world little Devar, blessed to be a blessing.

Reply
Dikkon
4/21/2017 07:43:02 pm

Thanks, Cuz Lil. He's quite a guy. And we've had a grand time with his siblings, as I said in a response above.

I'll see you soon in New Mexico! Details by email.

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floyd link
4/21/2017 08:33:13 pm

Congratulations! He is indeed a good looking boy.

Your pondering encourages and helps me to follow suit. I too have a grandson and one on the way. They bring me great joy and sorrow for the world they'll have to face, but as you pointed out, if they know the Father of creation they'll be fine with their heavenly perspective.

Reply
Dikkon
4/22/2017 09:49:05 am

Hey, Floyd, congratulations! It's good to be in the same grandparent club, you and I.

I think the point both you and I make is that Moses was right.

Life is tough and (at least from the three-score-years-and-ten age point) it seems fleeting. But our invitation is to view it from the perspective not of our fallen selves in our time-limited condition, but from the perspective of our redeemed selves in our infinite perspective.

Some people dismiss this calculation of salvation for reasons of their own. They are free to do so. But I (and I assume you) hope our grandchildren will not do that, and that they will have peaceful souls despite the fallen condition of the world around them.

May it be so.

Reply
Peter Cutler link
4/22/2017 11:44:54 am

Nice piece. At 75 I have a lot to reflect on. Apparently despite my somewhat misspent youth and varying hazardous occupations I still have work to do since I am still here. Obviously you have kept alive values that your grandmother (and many others) kept dear even though those notions are reviled by some in today's society. For many of us allegiance to those values is the foundation of our lives - so, indeed "charge on" depending on our moral compasses to anchor us to the best path.

Reply
Dikkon
4/22/2017 02:03:19 pm

Pete, I love your reference to "moral compasses." We all need them, do we not? Bless you that you continue to follow yours!

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