10/26/19 Weekend Grif.Net - Who Can Stop Aging?
Robert Griffin
King Canute (or Cnut] the First of Denmark (AD 985-1035) was a larger-than-life figure in Anglo-Saxon history. He led an army into England after the death of English King Æthelred ‘the Unready’, and failure of his son Edmund Ironside to gain support of the people. Canute was crowned King of England in AD 1016, married the widow of Æthelred and continued to expand his realm, adding King of Norway and King of Scotland to his titles.
He was so powerful that he imagined he could command the sea to stop rising and it would obey him. To prove this, he moved his throne to the beach, only to discover to his chagrin that the sea was not his to command. He could not roll back the ocean. Many stubborn people learn the hard way by taking a tumble. Kind Canute learned by getting a soaking. Having learned his lesson, King Canute could teach modern people a thing or two about trying to tell aging to stop; there are limits to earthlings’ abilities. Stopping aging is not within those limits.
It is noteworthy that the noble king, after getting his feet and legs wet, not only admitted he was wrong, but proclaimed that earthly power has limits and that the power to rule the waves belonged only to the One who had created them. As a result, he never again wore his crown, but ordered that it should be placed above a cross symbolic of which the Lord of heaven and earth hung. Those who resist the incursion of age should admit their limits as the king did, and should acknowledge that their times are held safely in the hands of Him who, as the King of Kings, rules the cosmos and all that is within it.
Addendum: This may certainly be applied to the current arguments about “Climate Change” and ludicrous notions that politicians or policies of man can change the ocean or by law change the cycle of nature!
[Adapted from a story in the book Improving with Age by Stuart and Jill Briscoe]
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
"Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!"