Always learning.

“I’m seventy years old!” the senior member of AA declared. “I’m done learning.” I understood what he meant. In a program that demands daily involvement, one that continuously asks us to look at our character defects, past actions, various relationships, and questions all that seems to be our human nature, it would be easy, or at least tempting, to throw up our hands, as this man did, and give up. But there was also a sadness to his decision. While he may not ever take a drink again, his unwillingness to learn marks the end of his program. Yes, the demands stop, but so do the rewards.

Such decisions are not limited to people in recovery. In whatever one does, there is an opportunity to learn. There’s nothing more inspirational to me than a senior citizen taking a class. Regardless of the approaching horizon, there is still time to learn. So often, however, we reach a point where we stop, or at least significantly slow down, our intake of new ideas.

“I don’t need to write a sermon,” the preacher decides. “I can use one from a few years back.”

“I’ll go to the conference,” says the attorney, “but I don’t plan to go to any of the seminars.”

“ I am a landscape artist," says the painter. “Abstracts are just not my thing.”

“I’m a republican,” says the disgruntled voter. “I don’t give a damn what the linerals think.”

“I will provide for my children,” says the father, “But I’m not going to some parenting class.

The examples are endless, with plenty of evidence to share, but there’s another way, a “more excellent way,” where we find the humility to admit we don’t know it all and there’s more to learn. No matter the length of days, or depth of wisdom, there’s always more to learn, more to un-learn.

Yes, it means work.

It will be frustrating and frightening.

It will require listening.

It will ask that we speak, as well, but from a deeper, less-scripted place.

But, in the end, we will find new life, a new “us,” and regardless of our age that's always something to be celebrated.

(Written at the Atticus Coffee and Book Shop, Park City, UT)