REFLECTIONS ON GROWING OLD(ER)
Someone once said that we are now living in the age of age. In fact, there are more old people alive today than at any time in history. There are, today, more people over 65 in the United States than the entire population of Canada. Faced with these figures, and faced with the fact that you will someday be, if you are not already, in the category of the aged, the old, or the elderly, how do you, or will you, look upon the final chapter of your book of life? Some look at age philosophically, like Jack Benny, who said: "Age is a matter of mind; if you don't mind, it doesn't matter." Some look at age sarcastically, like the wisecracker who said: "You know you are getting old when the gleam in your eye is from the sun hitting your bifocals." Or, as Bob Hope said on his 80th birthday: "You know you're old when the candles cost more than the cake." Some view age evasively, like the elderly couple in California who were stopped for speeding and when asked where they were going in such a hurry, replied, "We're escaping from Leisure World." Some look at age shrewdly, like Agatha Christie, who quipped that she married an archaeologist so that the older she became, the more he would appreciate her. But what about scripturally? In the Book of Genesis, Abraham made a comment about his advanced years and how his faith was strong even at 99 years of age. St. Paul even once wrote of Abraham that, "He (Abraham) did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old . . ." While his body weakened, his soul grew stronger. St. Paul wrote: " ... he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God." (Romans 4:20) Abraham didn't need any White House Conference on Aging to figure out how to handle the afternoon of his life. His senior years were the "Sabbath" of his soul, not to rest but to refresh. They were the garnering years, alive with rich possibilities for self-realization, a time of harvest, abundant and manifold. With the patriarch as a paradigm, St. Paul intimates that age is a time of spiritual enrichment, of growing close to God. The aging saint has no time for regrets. Age is the country he's always wanted to reach. The saints go marching in! It's the land of freedom: freedom from the striving of making a living, freedom from the strains of child-raising, freedom from the real, or imaginary, necessities of social acceptance, freedom from defining one's own status by occupation, income, and social approval, freedom to live where you want, do what you want, go where you want; and yes, freedom at last, to wear shoes for comfort instead of for style. Age, a la Abraham, is a time to sift for nuggets of meaning, to make psychic gains, and experience spiritual satisfaction, to add life to years, not just years to life. To try to link faith and age in any other non-productive way is to have as a motto: "In God We Rust." LCDR Jeffrey Nordhaus, CHC, USN
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