FEBRUARY 2018 EDITION
THE WOODLANDS UMC
POINT A MESSAGE FROM
DON MEADOR PASTOR TO SENIOR ADULTS
LUNCH BUNCH Seated: Virginia Cray, Lynne Turner, Dale Birran, Ann & Jerry Armstrong Standing: Margi Davies, Mark Lewis, Linda Owen
Lunch Bunch recently met at Pallotta’s Italian Grill. Please join us this month on Tuesday, February 13, at 11:00 a.m. Pappadeux Seafood Kitchen, 18165 I-45 (on the east side of I-45). There is a new lunch menu. Reservations are due by Monday, February 12. For more information, contact Dolly Loftiss at 210.844.2062. All senior adults are welcomed to attend!
Mary Kerr, Nancy Gonzalez and Lynn Birran
A NOTE FROM
CHEF BEN
Dolly Loftiss, Lunch Bunch organizer
Mary and Jerry Armstrong
Happy New Year! It has been a great pleasure for me and my team to prepare your meals for the last few years, and we are continually impressed with the growing attendance and touched by your compliments. To help continue Prime Timers success, your RSVP for the luncheon by noon on the Friday before is crucial to insuring we have plenty of food for all our guests. Thank you and I look forward to a great 2018!
As my wife and I were completing the annual January ritual of putting away all the “Christmas stuff,” I pondered the meaning of this activity. Every year it seems we have more to put away and every year we say “we really need to get rid of some of this.” Why does that seem to be such a difficult task? We really need to “cull out”, to downsize and simplify. It seems to me the problem is we do not want to let go of the past. Most of these “things” remind us of precious moments with family or friends, of special friends from the past and significant events connected with Christmas. One of the great challenges of reaching “senior adult status” is to determine what to do with the things we have accumulated over the years. Do we give it away to family or friends? Do we pack it up for thrift shops? Do we donate it to charitable causes? When we’ve run out of room in the attic for all the “stuff”, it’s time to act. Perhaps the first step is to recognize that what we have doesn’t determine who we are. Giving away the things that marked all the stages of our lives shouldn’t leave us feeling empty. On the contrary, it should free us to concentrate on the core values of our lives and on who and what really matters. It can be a time to become what all the living has enabled us to be. It is not a matter of letting go of the wonderful memories of the past. It is just the practical matter of getting ready to “travel light” and not be burdened by “things” as we anticipate the future. In her book, The Gift of Years, Joan Chittister has written these words: “A burden of these years is the temptation to cling to the times and things behind us rather than move to the liberating moments ahead. A blessing of these years is the invitation to go light-footed into the here and now, because we spend far too much of life preparing for the future rather than enjoying the present.” May your days be filled with more joyful moments and fewer ‘things.” Your Friend,