By Weldon Tisdale, Chaplain

The Christian year includes two central cycles focused on major events in the life of Christ: the Christmas cycle (Advent-Christmas-Epiphany) and the Easter cycle (Lent-Easter-Pentecost).

Each of these seasons begins with a time of preparation and anticipation followed by a time of celebration. A season designated as “Ordinary Time” follows each cycle. The word “ordinary” here does not mean “routine” or “not special.” Instead, it refers to the “ordinal numbers” (first, second, third,
etc.) used to name and count the Sundays (such as the third Sunday after Epiphany).

The first period of Ordinary Time, the Season after Epiphany, begins on Epiphany Day and ends on the day before Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent). The central theme of this season is the calling of disciples and the early ministry of Jesus.

The second period of Ordinary Time, the Season after Pentecost, follows the Easter cycle. It begins the day after Pentecost and continues to Advent. The purpose of this season is to support new disciples and the whole congregation in living out the gifts and callings discerned during the Easter Season and commissioned on the Day of Pentecost.

Every year, Christians experience the contrast between the central seasons of Christmas and Easter, where we see God in the events around the coming of Christ, and the in-between times, where we see, speak about and join God’s ongoing work in the world.

It is our human tendency to get excited about Christmas and Easter and for our attention and enthusiasm to wane in between. Yet, we should not confuse “ordinary” with “commonplace.” One writer, Bo McAllister tells us that “Ordinary Time is extraordinary because it reminds us that God is with us even in the day-to-day ordinariness of our lives. God wants to be in our everyday lives, even the parts we view as ordinary and mundane.”

We thus experience two regular cycles of preparation, celebration and action in ministry each year, with the Ordinary Times as the primary periods of action. Ordinary Times should be a call to action during the in-between times. We are in an “Ordinary Times” season. What actions will you take to advance the Kingdom of God? Let us enjoy the relaxed nature of summer but let us do so in a way that also celebrates the sacredness of “Ordinary Time

By Bonnie Polak, VP of Philanthropy and Community Engagement

Trinity Woods is pleased to announce that we have started the process of gating the community. Over the past several months, informational meetings were held for residents to learn more about securing the campus by adding a gated entry system.

Gated communities are increasingly popular among seniors seeking a secure, serene, and sociable living environment. Some of the key features and benefits of a gated entry:

Enhanced Security and Privacy: By limiting access to residents and approved guests only, the gated entry system will significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized individuals entering our neighborhood.

Controlled Access: Residents will have the convenience of accessing the neighborhood seamlessly through the gated entry system, while guests will require approval from residents to enter.

Community Cohesion: The implementation of a gated entry system encourages a greater sense of community by fostering a shared commitment to safety and security among residents.

“This is a great opportunity for our community,” said Garrett Lee, Trinity Woods CEO. “I am even more excited to announce that this project has been fully funded with donations and pledges. It speaks volumes that we have such support for this project and how it will add to the community.”

We thank the people who supported this effort with their prayers and contributions. The project is already under way, and we expect to break ground in the coming months. The estimated completion date of the project is the end of the year, weather permitting.

It’s a difficult conversation to have. While no one knows when that time will be, as we grow older, the question comes with more urgency. Making your wishes known is crucial for several reasons, as it helps ensure that your preferences and values are respected, particularly in situations where you might not be
able to communicate them yourself. Here are some key points highlighting the importance of this practice:

1. Personal Autonomy: Clearly articulating your wishes helps maintain your autonomy by ensuring your decisions are honored.

2. Peace of Mind: Knowing that your desires will be respected can provide significant peace of mind. This applies to both you and your loved ones.

3. Avoiding Conflicts: When your wishes are explicitly known, it reduces the potential for conflicts among family members and friends.

4. Legal Considerations: Specifying your wishes in legally binding documents like living wills, advance directives, or powers of attorney ensures that your instructions are followed in accordance with the law.

5. End-of-Life Decisions: Making your end-of-life preferences known is particularly important to ensure that your dignity is maintained, and your end-of-life care aligns with your values.

6. Financial Management: By making your financial wishes known, you can ensure that your assets are managed and distributed according to your desires.

7. Organ Donation and Funeral Preferences: Indicating your preferences for organ donation and funeral arrangements can relieve your family of making difficult decisions during a time of grief and ensure your wishes are honored.

8. Communicating Values and Legacy: Beyond practical considerations, making your wishes known allows you to communicate your values, beliefs, and legacy. This can provide guidance and inspiration to your loved ones and ensure your personal and family values are upheld.

By Wellness Manager, Alison McMillan

While it may be the end of spring, it’s always a good time to think about fall. No, not fall the season where the leaves change and the weather cools, but rather tumbles, stumbles, trips, and spills. One in four Americans over the age of 65 fall each year and almost 40% of those who fall suffer injury from it. While there’s a variety of factors that can cause an increased risk of falling, such as medications, loss of strength and balance, increased trip hazards at home, and lack of sufficient nutrition, there are also ways to mitigate and reduce your fall risk.

One of those ways is Yoga! Yoga has been growing in popularity in senior Americans. In fact, participation has doubled in the last 10 years; no wonder since yoga can be practiced by virtually everyone!

By practicing slow movements with holding poses, yoga helps to build strength throughout the body – legs, arms, and most importantly the core. It also helps to improve flexibility in stiff muscles and joints. Many poses enhance stability and balance and teach the body how to adjust to changes in its position.
It requires the participant to practice focus and concentration on their body.

Yoga poses improve the mind-body connection through coordination and mindfulness exercises. It requires the body and the brain to speak to and understand each other, which builds stronger neurological connections. The nature of the weight bearing yoga poses help to strengthen bones therefore helping reduce the risk of a fracture should you fall.

To celebrate International Yoga Day, Trinity Woods is offering yoga classes twice-a-week by Julie Clemons! Julie is certified through YogaFit and has been teaching yoga for 18 years. Julie says, “If you want to get out of bed a little easier in the morning and who doesn’t – try yoga!”

By Weldon Tisdale, Chaplain

Psalm 68: 5 – “He is a father to the fatherless…” (Living Bible)

The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm as the nation’s campaign to celebrate mothers – perhaps because, as one florist explained, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.”

On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, WV, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday.

The next year a Spokane, WA woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers, and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.

Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day.

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed that the third Sunday in June would be officially known as Father’s Day, saying that we look to fathers to “provide the strength and stability which characterize the successful family.” In 1972, President Richard Nixon made the day a national holiday.

On this Father’s Day, June 16, 2024, our nation will pause to celebrate our fathers. But it might be difficult for some of you to celebrate because your father is no longer around. Or maybe your relationship with your father is broken, or not what you hoped it would be.

Even if you can’t celebrate with your earthly father on Father’s Day, you can still celebrate with your Heavenly Father. King David writes in Psalm 68:5 that God, our Heavenly Father, is “Father to
the fatherless…”

If you belong to God, then you have a great Father. And because you are His, you can never be called fatherless. The Lord even have you His name to wear. Wear it with pride. You are a treasured member of His family.

n a world where youth often takes center stage, there’s an invaluable treasure trove waiting to be discovered in the wisdom of age. Life is a journey, with its peaks and valleys, its triumphs and
tribulations.

One of the most profound lessons we learn from the wisdom of age is the art of resilience. Life is
rarely a smooth sail; it’s the storms that teach us to adjust our sails. Through the lived experiences
shared in these pages, we discover that change does not mean roadblocks but opportunities for growth. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a career setback, or a health challenge, the wisdom of age teaches us to weather the storms with fortitude and emerge stronger on the other side.

Moreover, wisdom underscores the importance of relationships in shaping our lives. From the bonds forged with family members to the friendships cultivated, it’s the connections we nurture that sustain us through life’s ups and downs. Through the lens of age, we come to realize that it’s not the quantity but the quality of our relationships that truly enrich our lives. Investing time and energy in building meaningful connections at all ages becomes paramount, reminding us that love and companionship are the true currencies of life.

Perhaps the most profound lesson gleaned from aging is the importance of living with intention and purpose. The wisdom of age implores us to seize each moment, to savor the simple pleasures, and to pursue our passions with unwavering zeal. Whether it’s pursuing a long-held dream, giving back to the community, or simply finding joy in everyday moments, living life to the fullest means embracing each day as a gift and making the most of the time we have.

Even the Bible tells us that a long life brings wisdom and understanding. Leaning into what we learn over the years is a valuable key to enjoying your life and aging gracefully—something the residents of Trinity Woods excel at. As you will see in this issue, a few members have shared their insights on what makes life satisfying and sweet at any age.

By Garrett Lee, New Trinity Woods CEO

One thing we know for sure is that everything changes, right? Ecclesiastes (and the Byrds, circa 1967) inform us that there is a time for everything under the sun and a time to embrace. We have the privilege of embracing change together with the transition in leadership from Steve to myself.

I’m grateful for the divine timing of this transition and the symbolism that the Spring season sheds over this period; that is, we get to honor and remember yesterday, and experience the new growth and beauty that is possible because of a rich, cultivated foundation. Too deep for my first message to you? Oh, the fun we are going to have!

I cannot tell you how excited I am to join the Trinity Woods family and help continue the good work that has gone on here for many years, making it the amazing place it is today. Perhaps what I am most looking forward to is getting to know and building meaningful relationships with each of YOU.

We each bring a uniquely gifted set of personality, skills and perspective to this community which results in what I’ve experienced so far: a warm, welcoming, friendly and active environment at Trinity Woods. So, my message to you today as we start this new journey is simply thank you!

Thank you, Trinity Woods, for this opportunity to come alongside and serve with you. Thank you for sticking it out this last year through the CEO search and, thank you in advance for everything you are doing and will do to help make this leadership transition a seamless and successful one for everybody. I look forward to meeting each of you!

Blessings,
Garrett Lee
Trinity Woods, CEO

By Lupina Fry, Wellness Nurse

Springtime is a beautiful season with bursts of bright greens, pinks, and yellows everywhere you look. However, simply observing it through your living room window may not be beneficial for your overall health. According to the National Library of Medicine, spending time outdoors and in nature can significantly improve your physical and mental well-being.

In just 20 minutes, being outside can improve your physical wellness by increasing your Vitamin D level, which is important for bones, blood cells, and the immune system. Spending time in green spaces, at least 2 hours a week, can help reduce cortisol levels, decrease muscle tension, and lower blood pressure. Walking in nature or doing regular exercise, can lead to improved digestion, heart and lung
health, and weight loss while maintaining muscle strength. Additionally, it positively impacts circadian rhythm, which improves sleep quality.

Being outside in nature can improve mental health by improving our thinking, reasoning, and other cognitive abilities. It brings feelings of pleasure that can reduce stress, anxiety, tension, and mental fatigue. There are many ways to make getting outside part of your routine.

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heaves, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. … I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
Ann Frank

For example, if you need to make a phone call, take it outside. Take up a hobby such as outdoor photography or bird watching. Invite a friend to sit outside with you and find a location where you can enjoy nature together such as one of the benches on the Trinity Woods campus. Get outside and enjoy nature and don’t forget to take your shoes off and feel the grass beneath your feet- it feels wonderful!

Life Plan Communities or Continuing Care Retirement Communities (communities like Trinity Woods) can be a wonderful solution for older adults who are independent and active today, but who seek the peace of mind that comes with living in a community that can provide assisted living or health care services if and when needed. But how do you know if a CCRC is right for you?

If you answer yes to most of these introductory questions, then it may be worth exploring your options further:

Do you want to downsize your homeowner responsibilities? (interior/exterior maintenance and repairs)

Do you like to plan ahead to control, reduce or eliminate the uncertainty about future housing and health care costs?

If you ever need assisted living or advanced healthcare services, do you want assurance that such services are guaranteed and provided by the community in which you live?

Would you prefer a social and active community environment—with various services and amenities available to you—that also affords you privacy and independence?

Are you interested in having easy access to a variety of wellness programs and other activities?

Would you like to reduce the number of meals you prepare by having access to a meal plan and possibly bistro-style dining options?

Do you want to reduce the chance that your adult children or other family members will be responsible to provide or coordinate assisted living or nursing care if you need it?

Are you prepared to possibly pay an entry fee and monthly service fees in exchange for the above?

Content provided with express written permission from myLifeSite | www.mylifesite.net

By Weldon Tisdale, Chaplain
“Just be yourself!” The resounding encouragement most likely to be spoken to someone doubting their abilities. In the smash hit Frozen, Elsa had to learn to be herself, discarding the “conceal” message her parents had instilled in her as a child and harnessing her unique powers for the good of her kingdom.
In the smash hit Coco, young Miguel had to break out of the “make shoes” message of his parents and learn to be himself, a music-loving Mexican singer who brought joy to his village.

How does God feel about this message to “be yourself”? After reading the Bible, I would say that God cautiously loves it. We see God’s love for our uniqueness in Paul’s masterful analogy of the human body “God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” 1 Corinthians 12:18. Just as God wants elbows to be elbows and eyeballs to be eyeballs, so also God wants you to be you. The idea that we are unique and are uniquely made for a purpose is wonderfully biblical. That begs the question—Who are you?

I’ve come to realize that I can read faster, write more clearly, and speak more easily than the average person. For me, “be you” looks like investing as much of my time into these God-given talents so that more people can get connected to Jesus.

And you? Are you wired for emotion, compassion, or comforting people? Do you have the courage to take that first step as a leader? Do you have the ability to come up with fresh ideas? I don’t know exactly how God made you, but I do know that God made you to be you…for Him. Because when you are who God created you to be for Him, you’ll be the best you possible.

Adapted from Pastor Mike Novotny at timeofgrace.org

By Steve Dickie, CEO

All of us share a common debt to the many others who “prepared the way” for us by shaping our community and giving of themselves in ways which served to our benefit. Because of their kindness and
generosity our lives have been enriched and as they served the greater good. There is a collective blessing we inherit that we are now obligated to build upon and pass on to others. It is true: we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Rev. Elson Hargrove joined the staff of Trinity Woods (then Oklahoma Methodist Manor) as Assistant
Health Care Administrator in 1984. He went on to be Health Care Administrator and later Executive
Director prior to his retirement in 1996.

During his tenure he was involved in the construction of the Fleming Center, the Patio Homes, and the Health Center. Rev. Hargrove had the distinction of hiring Dennis Graham (now Chief Operating
Officer) as a contractor in 1995.

Dennis described Rev. Hargrove as a kind and compassionate leader who was always looking out for the residents and staff.

Elson and Joyce Hargrove now reside in the very Health Center he helped to build. It is an honor and a privilege for all of us to serve those who served us so well.