Second President Blessing

I have been marinating in the beauty of aged and toothless John Adam’s heart and mind. My thanks to author David McCullough for an absolutely striking biography of the second president that has brought President Adams to life for me.

Prior to my exposure to the second president’s life story, I had been studying the faces of aging boomers. These faces seem to surround me here in Tucson and I find that their faces betray the state of their heart. Either careworn and burdened, or joyful and heading somewhere fast. It is my belief that between 55 and 60 most people make an unconscious decision internally about their life focus. They either focus on their increased pain and unmanageable life circumstances, or decide to embrace this major life passage of aging. One of my life axioms is “whatever you focus on will grow “. And then I have to decide what I want to grow in my life.

John Adams clearly made this decision as he returned to life as farmer John in Quincy, Massachusetts upon “retirement”. After serving as a thorn in the side of every member of the continental Congress and our second president, he gladly returned to his beloved farm and the slower, richer life that accompanied it. People around him would often comment about finding him studying a tiny kernel of wheat, or staring at the moon at night with a remarkable look of wonder on his face. And he would continually blurt out his life mantra, “rejoice evermore “. I find myself now channeling John Adams throughout the day… Rejoice evermore has become my mantra as well.

This new mantra is changing me incrementally. I find myself returning to my garden to sit and wonder at my Bougainvillea plant, or staring into the face of my beautiful six month old great grandson Valor. “Rejoice evermore “I can’t stop saying it, or doing it. Want to join me? I’d love to hear about it.