So what is it like to be sixty?

Turning Sixty (Hubpages)

So, what is it like to  be 60?  That is a question that has come to me on a number of occasions recently. I'm not sure I have an answer or that it is any different than yesterday.

I have given pause however and reflected on the journey that has shaped me thus far:  the early years growing up in what was then the Belgian Congo; beginning boarding school in Grade three; travelling across the Atlantic by freighter; living in the only stone house in Morden Manitoba and having the oil furnace run out in -20C temps when Dad & Mom were away; being the cousin from Africa when all my other cousins lived close together and got to know each other well; experiencing first hand some of the outcome of the independence struggle for the Congo (1960); having to flee and live in a refugee camp for several weeks in Luanda, Angola before being transported back to Canada; public school in Walsingham, rural southern Ontario; enjoying the freedom of wandering the bush, streams and lakes of southern Ontario with friends; being asked by my Dad one day (when I was in Grade 8) if I would like to go back to Africa; High School at the American School of Kinshasa; and going to a Bible School in Abbotsford, British Columbia.Those early years with their travels surely shaped how I saw the world, the assumptions I held, and the relationships that would shape my life.

I am deeply grateful to my parents, Willie and Margaret Baerg, in the vision they set for me, in the framework they offered of seeing the world as a place to experience the goodness of God, and the loving care they showered on me in the midst of all the change, travel, dynamism and struggles we experienced living and working away from our extended family - in the heart of the Congo (Zaire/DRC). 

Since first volunteering with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) in the early 70s the part of the journey that has made me see myself as a global citizen has been more intentional - earlier it was the outcome of my parents choices. Colleagues, partnerships, friends, family and others have caused me to rethink my basic presuppositions many times. Living and working in both Canada and Africa has re-oriented my perspective more than once and challenged my understanding of the world. I a highly indebted to people like pastor Gideon Lumeya (who baptised me in the Kwilu River, Kikwit, DRC), Ntate Pakisi (my adopted father and spiritual mentor while teaching in Lesotho), Art Solomon - Ojibway elder in Ontario at whose feet I felt like a disciple, Bishop Denis Sengulane of Maputo, Mozambique who offered a living vision of Jesus on earth, pastor Pauline Steinmann, (Wildwood Mennonite Church, Saskatoon, SK) - who always pushes me to ask the deeper questions underlying my journey of faith and for my life partner Lois, who has walked with me and loved me on much of this path. For these and many other family and friends I am forever grateful. They have helped me see the world in new and better ways and tried to keep me grounded and focused.

I cannot leave this page without saying something about two young women who have had the deepest impact on my life - Allison and Melanie!  They have been a joy to love (and to be loved in turn), nurture (and to be nurtured and challenged in return) and relate to as daughters and now as friends and adults. Without them the world would not be the same and the sun would not shine as it does.

Much more could be said and maybe some day a book will be written..... However that would be too much for now and for any one of you reading this. SO HOW IS IT TO BE SIXTY? Not sure I can answer that any better now than I could at the beginning of this soliloquy but two quotes stick out in my mind as central to the present journey and space of my life.

One is from T.S. Eliot in his Four Quartets (Little Gidding):
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.


The other is from a little hobbit named Bilbo (JRR Tolkein):

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And wither then?

I cannot say!

So we'll see you on the path somewhere and some how. Maybe we'll recognize each other and be able to bless one another on this journey we call life. Maybe that will let us know our purpose and being that much better. So join me on the 'no limit' 60 path - with only the future ahead!!!