Who Said It's Great To Be Old?

In my previous Blog I wrote about my great-grandson Byron and his upcoming Baptism. That happened as scheduled and we all rejoiced as the Lord welcomed Byron into the family of God through the water. I poured water upon Byron's head three times as I said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." We look forward now to Byron growing up and to that day when he will re-affirm his Baptism before his parents and the gathered people of God.

As I think about that whole event I am thankful—and no little dismayed. Yes, you heard me right. I am in my 8th decade and faced daily with the brevity of life. A friend in his 10th decade of life recently told me quietly that he prays often to "be taken home," this even though he is still mobile and has full control of his mental capabilities. What gets to many of us seniors is that even in the church, many consider us to be useless. We are supposed to go fishing if we have the strength or, perhaps, play a few rounds of golf, but other than that, please stay out of the way.  Our youth-oriented culture points out that we who are old are unable to make much of a contribution to anything. Knowledge, wisdom and progress are and must remain in the hands of the young—the forever young. Again and again, we are told that being old is bad, wrong, something everyone must deny and avoid at all costs. If we start talking about this old age thing we have not learned to age successfully. We need to go back to school or read a book, look at a video or something and learn how to do it correctly—that is, learn to deny that it is happening.

Susan Jacoby, author of Never Say Die: The Myth and the Marketing of the New Old Age, said in a recent interview,

"Here's what one cannot do and be considered a person who is aging successfully: complain about health problems to anyone younger; weep openly for a friend or lover who has been dead more than a month or two; admit to depression or loneliness; express nostalgia for the past (either personal or historical); or voice any fear of future dependency — whether because of poor physical health, poor finances, or the worst scourge of advanced old age, Alzheimer's disease. American society also looks with suspicion on old people who demand to be let alone to deal with aging in their own way: one must look neither too needy for companionship nor too content with solitude to be considered a role model for healthy aging rather than a discontented geezer or crone. … It's great to be old — as long as one does not manifest too many of the typical problems of advanced age."

 Don't get me wrong here. I'm not advising you to buy into the philosophy of Ms. Jacoby. She is openly an atheist and a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America, an advocacy group representing atheists, humanists and freethinkers in American Politics. It's just that she has a point: "Its great to be old —as long as one does not manifest too many of the typical problems of advanced age."

Later on this week I'll share some thoughts about aging from a Biblical viewpoint. I'll focus upon these words of Psalm 92

12	The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13	Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.
14	They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;
15	To show that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

 They shall bring forth fruit in old age—what a strange thought.

How Slow of Heart to Believe

It's been a while since I've posted. I could say that I've been busy, but that would be only partly so. The truth is, I've been depressed and discouraged, an old familiar pain that spans my entire lifetime. I can distinctly recall it since my early teens. If I could find it, I'd point you to a journal from those days in which I scrawled, "What good to live, if but to die.

Sounds like the Book of Ecclesiastes, one Biblical book I avoid, because it is too painful for me. "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

It doesn't help that I've been reading a dismal book. Why do I dip into such stuff? I've just finished One Second After by William R. Forstchen. He writes about what might happen if enemies of the USA were to manage to explode nuclear bombs a couple hundred miles above Kansas, causing an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse). Telephones, cars, the entire electrical grid, everything electronic--all of it--could in theory be destroyed while people and animals would not be affected. However, that would leave us helpless, pushed back to a civilization like that in medieval times. Millions upon millions would die.

My goodness, what moves me to read such stuff? Fiction, of course, but potentially . . . Well, you get the picture.

As I read that I suddenly began to realize how the two disciples on the road to Emmaus must have felt when they thought Jesus was dead. Everything they hoped for, dreamed about, was gone. Their Messiah was dead, murdered by the Romans and their own country's leaders on a cross outside of Jerusalem.

"He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people," they told the stranger who encountered them on the way. "The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel" (Luke 24).

"We had hoped. . ." The dream was gone, dissipated by the cruel reality of the day. The night was now closing in and with it hope was dying.

And yet, here was this stranger. They didn't recognize him. They couldn't. Their eyes were blinded by their disbelief. Rather blunt, no very blunt was he. "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe . . ." And from there he went on to explain that it was all part of the plan, all written through the prophets centuries before.

I guess I'll have to take another look at my depression, wiggle my little finger at my doubts and ask, "Is what you believe really the truth? Is God dead? Has Satan won after all?"

Perhaps not. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

I'd best get on with the tasks of the day before me. I pray you will do the same.