Still More! Flourishing on my Summit: Living Our Vintage Season

By Leona Choy

Leona Choy was born in Iowa of Czech parents. She graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois and served with her late husband Ted in mission, church, and educational work in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and the United States. She was a co-founder of Ambassadors For Christ, Inc., a campus ministry among Chinese university students and professionals in North America, and served for 25 years with them in administrative and editorial work.
Leona made 14 trips to the People’s Republic of China to escort American tour groups, to minister to Christians in China with her husband, and as a liaison English teaching consultant.
Co-founder and president of WTRM-FM (Southern Light Gospel Music Network) in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Leona produced a daily radio program for five years.
She serves as editorial director of Golden Morning Publishing which she established with her son, Rick. Leona is the writer, editor, and collaborator of over 36 books and many foreign language editions. Her books are listed and reviewed and can be ordered through her web site www.goldenmorning.com. Some are accessible as e-books. She blogs at leonachoy.blogspot.com. Leona lives in Winchester, Virginia and when she is not at her computer, four adult sons, ten grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren keep her busy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781889283241

Book preview

God!

Preface

Wisdom for My Summit Season

We need wisdom in every season of our mortal lives. In childhood, however, it can’t really be expected because we have not grown sufficiently and life has not unfolded yet. We are too fresh, untried, and unproven. Youth is the experimental stage; life is being tested, knowledge is being accumulated. Youthful wisdom? Not so much. In prime years wisdom and folly are being sorted out; we make some good choices; some foolish decisions take us on detours.

It is in advanced years that wisdom is expected to flower and its fragrance waft to others. At least that’s the proverbial track. The mature, those who have accumulated many decades, are finally supposed to be wise. Those who trail behind us are expected to happily benefit from our collected, well-tried experience.

In both cases that may not always be so. Sometimes, unfortunately, those in vintage years speak and act foolishly. And because the young insist on making their own mistakes, they are reluctant to profit from the experience of their elders. So history repeats itself. We who are hopefully wise and mature should be careful to dispense our wisdom only when or if it is requested. Otherwise, let’s zip the lips! That in itself is golden wisdom.

The wisdom I seek for myself in my mature years is wisdom to live in the will and purposes of God. In my youth, the days seemed to stretch open-ended and could hardly be counted. The aging Moses reflected on this transient life in Psalm 90: So teach us to number our days, that we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom. I want to choose and act prudently as the path of life narrows and my remaining days can actually be numbered. My reflection on that theme follows.

My Prayer for Wisdom

God, grant me the wisdom of mature years to circumvent the potential foolishness of aging.

When You see me playing in the spiritual shallows, Lord, beckon me out of the wading pool into Your deep waters.

If I feel bogged down in meaningless routine, turn the plain water of my daily life into the best wine saved until last.

When I tend to resist change and settle in my comfort zone, grant me an open spirit and a growing, receptive mind.

If I’ve lost my get-up-and-go, show me how to rise and take up my bed and walk.

When my leaves are withered and dry, revive me to be full of sap and very green.

When my fruit is scanty and sour, show me how to flourish like the palm tree.

If the embers of my first love for You are growing cold, fan them into flame by Your Holy Spirit.

When the noise of my busy activity drowns out Your still small voice, quiet me to wait on You in contemplative silence.

If the soil of my life is depleted and lies fallow, break up the clods, supply fresh nutrients, and make straight my furrows.

When my prayers seem to be unanswered and my spirit is arid, open the floodgates to let Your Rivers of Living Water flow again.

Where my life is out of balance and I lose my footing, help me restore eternal priorities to keep from stumbling.

When my vision for Your Kingdom has grown dim, touch my eyes to see again Your destiny for me.

If I’ve become slow of speech to declare Your message, open my lips to boldly proclaim Your Good News.

If I can’t hear Your voice clearly, send Your Holy Spirit to be my hearing aid.

If my memory begins to slip, help me remember that You never leave me or forsake me.

When I’m weary from the length of life’s journey, draw me close to Your bosom to find comfort and rest.

If I’m laboring to bear scarcely thirty-fold fruit, teach me to abide in You to effortlessly produce by Your wisdom a hundred-fold.

Where some good seed of Your Word still lies dormant as I advance in years, send the gentle rain of Your Spirit so I can bear an abundant late harvest.

When I am tired and lack motivation to press on, restore iron to my soul and strength to my weak knees and limp arms.

When I drag my feet to do Your will, energize me with the adrenalin of Your Holy Spirit.

When I’m short of breath from life’s fast pace, inflate my lungs with Your Breath of Life.

If I grip material possessions too tightly, teach me to hold loosely the things of this world.

If I open my mouth to speak foolish words, show me how to put a watch on my lips.

When I’m afraid of the darkness around me, take my hand to walk in Your Light.

When my emotions roller-coaster out of control, teach me to set my affection on things above, not on things of earth.

When anxiety about the future threatens to overwhelm me, remind me of Your great faithfulness in times past.

If my appetite becomes jaded by the world’s junk food, give me Yourself as my Daily Bread and Wine in the Eucharist.

When I think I’ve reached the limit of my endurance, help me persevere in Your strength to run with patience the last mile Home.

When thoughts of my mortal end cause me fear, remind me that You are preparing a Place for me in Your Father’s House.

Introduction

A Road Map At the Foothills

What is the LAND OF MORE?

I wrote my original autobiography, Czeching My Roots, just as the new millennium dawned. Since I had already lived a long, productive, and satisfying lifetime, I thought I might have reached the summit of my earthly life. Perhaps I had completed my course as Saint Paul realized when he declared, I have finished my course; I have kept the faith…. I wondered whether because of my advanced age that book would be the last of the many books I had written. I concluded that book with two chapters titled View from the Summit and Living on the Summit.

At the same time, I sensed there could be MORE adventures ahead. So I wrote in the final chapter of that book, I can’t write the last chapter(s) of my life because I haven’t lived them yet. I’m on tiptoe of anticipation to discover what MORE God still has for me in my original treasure chest, how much MORE there is ahead.

I could not have imagined how prophetic my own words were and how they would morph into the titles of three MORE books!

The Lord kept drawing me into deeper Christian truths and experience as I matured both in age and understanding. Throughout eight decades there were many steps of discerning MORE, always leading me joyfully upward and building upon my discoveries of the previous steps. God led me into still another decade of moreness about which I was eager to write. When I wrote the sequel to my original autobiography, I didn’t know that there would in time be two more sequels to make it a trilogy of spiritual autobiographical books. The first book that followed my original autobiography was titled My Journey to the Land of MORE: Evangelical to Catholic. In it I described my unexpected journey into the Catholic Church.

After that came the second book of my eventual trilogy sharing the new spiritual riches of that historic faith—Living the Treasures in the Land of MORE: Discoveries of a New Catholic Christian. Both books were built on the foundation of my previous biblical faith experiences of a lifetime of more. Both are based solidly on the threefold aspects of the Word of God: the inspired written Word of God, the Bible, and the Word of God as the incarnate Christ Himself, Jesus the Word made flesh, and the oral Word of God as faithfully passed on through the historical Sacred Tradition of Jesus and His apostles through the Church before the canon of the New Testament was even formalized.

My maturing faith embraced all of the unfolding MORE experiences the Lord brought me through during my entire lifetime. Each step of faith spiritually enriched my life and service for God. With each new MORE, I moved forward to the treasures of the next MORE. I didn’t discard any authentic biblical past spiritual discoveries that the Lord had revealed to me in His generosity. He is a God of overflowing abundance of goodness and mercy and love always drawing me closer to Himself.

How then do I define the Land of MORE as I use it in my books? First, I refer to my overall life journey covering the pursuit of all my faith experiences. The second way I view it is more specifically to my life in the Catholic Christian faith context.

This book, Still MORE! Flourishing on My Summit: Living our Vintage Season, is the third of the trilogy, and it includes both aspects of my definition of the Land of MORE. I have shared my overall experiences while living in my advanced years. I gather up my lifetime of Christian faith principles and bring them to bear on what I am learning during the aging process. I also include specific gems of truth relative to the Catholic Christian life in one’s final years.

When writing about MORE, I don’t imply greed or discontent or dissatisfaction or ungratefulness for what God has given me. Not disordered desire, covetousness, or lust for material possessions or position or achievements. It is rather with a positive expectancy to discover what MORE God still has generously planned for me, how much MORE I can keep learning, how much closer to God I can come, and how much fruit I can still bear for Him.

Defining the SUMMIT

In this book I use the term summit also in a double sense. I refer to both the entire later season of one’s chronological lifespan, and the pinnacle, the peak, the final highest elevation or point to which one can ascend. I write of the summit season as the final season of one’s earthly life. In the mountain analogy the summit as a pinnacle is where we leave behind our earth suits, our bodies, and launch into the presence of God to experience the reality of Eternal Life in God’s dimension. It is when we have completed our life span, as Saint Paul realized when he declared, I have finished my course; I have kept the faith….

We aren’t able to know in advance what the summit season of life will hold for us or how many months or years will be involved. That is in the hands of God who has planned each one’s unique life span according to His purpose and will. Likewise, we don’t know what the terrain of a mountain will be like until we put on our hiking boots and start climbing. We don’t have the luxury of a GPS so we need to be prepared. During the climb there are often one or more plateaus that stretch on before the next steep ascent. As in life, those tablelands provide a place to catch our breath and rest.

We also experience transient times, often traumatic, in our advanced years when we are faced with changes that may take us out of our comfort zone into uncharted ways. We encounter abrupt, precipitous cliffs with danger of drop-offs. We may be surprised to find that our particular mountain is part of an entire mountain range which has many peaks before the true pinnacle. The higher we climb, the more rare the atmosphere and the less baggage we can carry. We must lay aside more attachments. We are apt to become weary by the duration of the climb and be tempted to stop by the wayside and give up.

We don’t climb alone. Our trusted, experienced Guide, the Lord and Creator of the entire mountain range, never leaves us alone or forsakes us. He plans for rest stops at green pastures and still waters when we become weary, and He carries our burdens for us. He has brought enough provisions to nourish and sustain us all the way. And we climb in the company and with the fellowship of others of our peer-age who support us on when our strength flags. We, in turn, reach out to encourage them and grasp their hands to draw them upward with us toward the pinnacle-summit.

Our summit season is, in all honesty, at times a season of hardship, testing, and endurance but also of immense joy. The mountains echo with music as we climb singing the songs of Zion for the Ascent composed by the Psalmist King David. Although I titled only one chapter in this book Music on My Summit, singing permeates all that I have written. The short life sketches are the lyrics describing how God is choreographing the music of my life in my later years so I can keep singing on my summit regardless of the changing circumstances of advancing age. Life as I have known it keeps changing at an accelerating rate. God selects what style and tempo of music He wants me to sing as I go through whatever experiences He plans to bring me.

There is a melody one sings when walking slowly through the sadness and fear of a dark valley, a sort of whistling in the dark tune. There is a melancholy singing in the rain, the rain signifying tear drops or perhaps times of refreshing after drought. There is joyful singing in the brilliant sunshine when one feels the warmth of God’s smile and favor and blessing; there are love songs while leaning on Jesus’ bosom and listening to and feeling His heartbeat. There are quiet, plaintive songs in the lonely night waiting for the first light of daybreak; songs to sing in a joyous chorus of celebration with others. There are secret, silent opuses of the heart so intimate that no one hears them but God.

Poetry is music, just as the Psalms in Scripture were musical compositions originally meant to be accompanied by musical instruments. So it is natural for me in this book to sometimes sing in contemporary free verse when the topic lends itself to that expression. My pen (computer) is the instrument; my words in verse are the melody. All the poems in this book are written by me unless noted.

My theme of FLOURISHING

FLOURISH is a beautiful, bountiful, overflowing word. It is a more word. I deliberately selected flourishing as the characteristic that could and should be applied to the later season of one’s Christian life, our advanced years. Is that an anomaly? An impossible dream? A paradox? A contradiction when applied to calendar-challenged people?

FLOURISH used as a noun or a verb has many meanings. It can describe a dramatic, sweeping gesture that is grandiose or meant to impress. It can describe strokes or movements of the hand as in waving something about in the air, brandishing a sword or weapon or the like. Flourishing may describe flamboyant writing, with sweeping, ornamental or fanciful curves or lines, an artistic or graphic embellishment adding pen or brush lines to writing, as in initial letters of an important or historic document. It is the name of a rousing trumpet call or lively musical fanfare. It is used to indicate a period in history or life, like the finest or most flourishing state of life or beauty. It is the opposite of declining or failing or diminishing.

FLOURISH also indicates the healthy growth of a living thing: a plant, animal, or person. It describes a vigorous state of blooming or flowering or thriving luxuriantly, the opposite of dried, wilted, or fading.

FLOURISHING may describe a person in his prime, at the height of fame, excellence, influence, or skill, one who is successful and prosperous in multiple aspects. Flourishing is also a positive psychology concept which applies to mentally healthy adults having high levels of emotional well-being. Such people are happy and satisfied, tend to see their lives as having purpose, accept themselves, and are resilient, always growing and changing. They cope more effectively with chronic stress and other negative experiences. Obviously, flourishing is something that must be cultivated over the course of a lifetime.

Some people are reluctant to apply the word flourishing to people in the summit years of their lives, their supposed sunset years. The later season of life is more often characterized by diminishing faculties, energy, and interests. I use that term primarily to describe the inner, spiritual life of a Christian which can flourish regardless of obvious natural physical decline brought on by the human aging process. I focus on positive attitudes and responses to circumstances and conditions both interior and around us.

I believe that flourishing in our advanced years depends largely on appropriating the power and wisdom and enabling of the Holy Spirit of God and applying it to our state in life. In the natural state, of course we become weary, tired, and faint with physical and mental exhaustion because of the length and travails of the journey of life. But according to the God-inspired words of Isaiah the prophet, Have you not known? Have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength (40:28, 29). This Scripture is the key to the flourishing life which God offers us as we live out our advanced years in Christ.

Doesn’t God cut us any slack in our mature years? Is He realistic to ask us to flourish during the later period of life? God’s expectation set forth in Psalm 92:12-14 is that The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of Jehovah; They shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and green. Case closed.

The subtitle OUR VINTAGE SEASON

Yes, our vintage season. In this book I invite vintage-age readers to join me in making our way through our autumn-winter years. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…He has made every thing beautiful in His time… (Ecclesiastes 3). That includes our advanced years. As we press on the upward way, you may relate to many of my experiences, impressions, and learnings. Let’s hold hands as we climb our chronological mountain on our common journey.

Why vintage? That’s a term from wine making. In the Scriptures we find many references to grapes and wine and wine presses and harvests. Jesus uses analogies to new wine and its containers and to the vine and branches and the bearing of much fruit. At the wedding feast in Cana when Jesus turned water into wine, it was said to be the best wine [full-bodied vintage] saved until last.

By definition vintage is the wine from a particularly good harvest; the annual produce of a grape harvest; an exceptionally fine wine from a good year; the fullness of time to harvest grapes in preparation for wine making; being or having the best of its kind; dated or old-fashioned objects; being of some antiquity.

Jesus referred to God the Father as the Husbandman of the vineyard, an old-fashioned word which means vine dresser or vintner, the owner of the vineyard, the farmer, the manager of resources. We who are in our advanced years, being of some antiquity! should aspire to be the best wine which the Master of the Vineyard has been cultivating for a lifetime and allowing to mature and age according to His overall plan for His Kingdom Vineyard.

The SEQUEL aspect

I like to read sequels, to live sequels, and write sequels! A sequel is a literary work that is complete in itself but continues the narrative of a preceding work; an event or circumstance following something (Random House College Dictionary).

I love everything about a sequel; it speaks of abundance and progress and reminds me of God as an Over-Blesser. Since God keeps liberally extending my life, I continue living and writing and publishing spiritual autobiographical sequels. This book is a sequel to a sequel to the first book in my Land of MORE series. However, if you count my original autobiography, Czeching My Roots, I guess this book is really the fourth in this series!

Some friends teased me, "Are you going to call your series of four books a quadtetrarology?" I’m not sure that’s really a word. How about an autobiographical quartet? Or a quaternary of books? Or a quaternion of books, defined as a group or set of four persons or things? Or a Trilogy Plus? I have discovered some authentic new Scrabble words!

When I finish the final page of an exciting novel, I don’t want it to end. What happened to the protagonist and the rest of the characters? A brief epilogue at the end of the novel isn’t enough for me. I like to read books in a series where the author carries forward the same characters and introduces more characters along with new plots and intriguing subplots.

My life, too, is a story and my years are the many chapters. There was a beginning and there will be a conclusion, an earth-time finish—but not an end. I anticipate an eternal epilogue which will be an endless sequel as vast as the universe. In our humanity, we think in time and space sequences but God, Who is outside of time, stoops to our finite understanding of time and directs the sequels of our lives.

Thank God for sequels! When I was diagnosed with lung cancer and went through surgery twenty-four years ago, I faced the possibility that there might not be further earth-time sequels for me. No more productive, fruitful years to serve the Lord. But God planned for more sequels.

When my husband Ted died after forty-six years of marriage and parenting and ministry together, I faced the possibility that this might be the end of my ministry, my usefulness to God. But God planned for more sequels.

When I wrote my autobiography as a legacy for my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I tried to keep it to fewer than 450 pages. There was so much to tell about the Lord’s goodness and mercy. Although I tried to chronicle only major events of my long life, it was already more than an inch thick and the publisher warned that binding would be difficult! I thought that it was probably the final book I would write. But God planned for more sequels, and more published books.

As I have reached eighty-nine years and begun my ninetieth year, every day is the first day of the rest of my life. Could God possibly plan still more sequel-living for me? As I live the rest of my summit season, at what point in my climb I will arrive at the summit is up to Him and His destiny for my life. I simply have to keep climbing….

Years ago I came across these challenging words: I will climb my mountain. They have told me it is too high, too far, too steep, too rocky, and too difficult. But it’s my mountain and I will climb it. One day you will see me waving from the top… The unknown author had a different ending which I don’t even remember, but I chose my own ending with …and joyfully shouting, ‘We made it!’ as I stand hand in hand with God ready to leave for the Grand Sequel.

The Lord veils the upward road ahead in my summit season because He loves me. He knows that if I knew in advance that the rest of the way was going to be nothing but happy-happy, I might be too impatient to get on with it and miss some of the blessings He wants to give me by trusting His plans without knowing what lies ahead. If I knew that the road ahead was going to be rougher and more difficult, or shorter or longer, I might be reluctant to go on, inclined to draw back.

But what if God reveals to us in advance something about His Heavenly Sequel after earth life? He does! But it is more than we can take in. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him (1 Cor. 2:9). Without letting me know the details of what is ahead in the rest of my summit season, He encourages me to trust Him and endure. He guarantees never to leave me or forsake me on my upward pilgrimage toward the final pinnacle of earth life. He simply wants me to keep doing His will as He whispers it uniquely to me day by day and to anticipate more of His goodness and mercy.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised (Hebrews 10:36). What did He promise? That I would obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:4,5).

What a Heavenly Sequel to our earth life! We are destined to finally live in real time, by God’s definition, in the eternal span of immortal existence! We will celebrate with joy in God’s Presence as we meet many of the same characters we knew when we lived our life story on earth and multitudes more from ages past and from years to come!

Explaining the FORMAT

I didn’t write this book as a theological treatise. It differs from the two previous books in my trilogy. These are whimsical musings, pensive ponderings on my own unfamiliar journey written while I’m still climbing toward the pinnacle of the mountain. It’s a journal of my progress expressing what I have been learning in my later years. I haven’t gone this way before. I haven’t climbed this mountain. I invite the reader to share the struggles and joys of the ascent with me. I would be delighted if there is some take-away value.

I titled the chapters according to the general topics which I have tucked under their umbrella. The topics may have a loose connection with one another and with the title. A particular topic may also fit just as well under another chapter title. The reader will find that the mini-subjects, thoughts, vignettes, musings, reflections, meditations, and life situations which fill the pages that follow often overlap in some of their ideas with topics in other chapters. However, I may have developed them more fully or in another way elsewhere.

This book represents a partial journal of what I was thinking and experiencing in my advanced years in the light of my faith. Neither the chapters nor the topics happened in sequence. Because of the summit theme that threads them together there is some sequential flow of chapters.

I wrote each mini-topic to stand alone and complete. Many were single posts on my blog, The Rest of the Way. I shared some topics with close friends who became like a focus group. I look upon this advance sharing as an analogy to what used to delight me as a child when I watched my mother baking a cake. She let me lick the mixing bowl and spoon as a foretaste, an appetizer, a prospect of what was to come.

When I tested those excerpts, samples from this book-in-progress before it was in print, I hope my friends had as much pleasure peeking at it piecemeal in advance as I had when I licked the bowl before eating the finished cake. By their encouragement and prayers they share in whatever outreach God has planned for this modest published volume.

Chapter 1

Climbing Toward My Summit

My Panoramic View

The top of a mountain should be the best place to view the entire 380-degree panorama of landscape. That is also true as we live in our advanced years. Whatever our calendar age, any of us may already be in our personal summit season since we don’t know the length of our earthly life. I can be quite sure, however, that toward the end of my eightieth decade I have been living in my summit season.

As a Christian, my look backward should be satisfying—neither proud nor disappointed but grateful and thankful. As I look around, I should be contented and exhilarated to anticipate what’s ahead. Realistically, none of us live in an ideal world nor have we led perfect lives. Since the Lord has been my Master Teacher for most of my life, I’m expected to have accumulated considerable knowledge, experience, and wisdom on my long, steep climb to reach this summit season.

I didn’t suddenly arrive at the summit season of my life in one giant leap. Within the framework of God’s sovereignty and His generous gift of free will, He allowed me to make many critical choices throughout my life. Those decisions determined my direction. I believe God worked within my desires to accomplish His purposes.

Without a doubt, a major defining choice was when I found God. That put me on a trajectory to conform to God’s will instead of insisting on doing everything my way. Because of my godly generational roots, about which I knew nothing until much later in life, coupled with my grandmother’s prayers for her little charge, I was restless and searching from my earliest recollection. Instinctively, I seemed to know that it was God for whom I was searching. He has filled the void in my life all the way to my life’s summit.

I recognize now that my choice to go in God’s direction was the work of the Holy