There are several viewpoints, especially those found in the younger members of the society, related to old age that should be addressed. It is a given that aging means moving inexorably toward death. For some the journey seems delayed, while others do not live long enough to be classified as senior. It is interesting that Jesus inferred this when he noted that the length of life is seventy years, but by reason of strength some live to fourscore years. I have lived long beyond even that extension. It does strike me that 2,000 years ago, when life spans were much shorter on the average than they are now, that Jesus’ reference was not to the ancients before him who sometimes numbered in hundreds of years, nor to the death average in his time which might have been about half that of the present. God did not speak in percentages related to all persons, but those who survived. Sixty was made the retirement age for those who served in the military in Israel. The improvement in the statistics of life for persons is presently influenced by the fact that more infants are living to maturity than was the pattern earlier in the discovery of percentage statistics. The average age of death for two persons, one dying at birth, and the other living to be a hundred, is fifty years. The uses of statistics need to be clarified each time used. During an earlier period in America, divorce statistics reported the number of divorces as related to the number of marriages over a lengthy period of time. Today they are commonly reported as annual, so that the conclusion may be skewed. A person may marry and divorce several times in the course of a lifetime, but the averages may skew the meaning of the events. From my mother’s three children, two were married five times and divorced or made bereft. I have been married once. The average for the three of us may mean little, except spiritually. What the real experience of marriage and divorce did to the persons involved, including the children from the marriages, has become stories in intensity and some real disappointment and loss for family.
Old age has been perceived as a blessing to society. Scripture states it is a sign of God’s blessing. In the current society there is feverish effort to extend life years for the population, but there is loss of vision about its meaning and benediction. Moses was pleased to remind Israel that he had kept his physical powers to the last, well over a hundred years of age. Reference to the aged in Scripture implies that it is a factor in the plan of God for the family, and positive meaning for society. For the insightful and patient elder the first is enough, the recognition of God to blessing. I witness affirmatively to it – strongly.
Age tells us a great deal about who we have become. The fires of physical passion have been banked (or should have been); the lessons of life have been learned (or should have been); the family legacy has been formed (or should have been); and, so the story proceeds. Muscles weaken, diets change, sensory acuities subside, or even die before we do; and, so the story proceeds. We feel we want to give away the stuff we spent a lifetime accumulating. Days are marked by an awareness that whatever one wants to do should be done today. There may not be a tomorrow. The mind begins to play funny tricks. We remember some tiny thing from fifty years ago, and do not remember if we turned off the light when we just left the room. We find ways to avoid accident and loss, so move more slowly (which may engender an accident for the fast movers behind us). We devise ways, such as putting our glasses in the same place when we take them off so they are not lost. In all of this we learn that this is the most spiritual period of our lives. We can pray without prejudice for family, friends and the world. Yesterday I resisted the feelings of my old age and got out of the house to do some shopping chores; to go to the Post Office and church for purpose; to make a call on my sister-in-law in a rest home; and, to call on a friend in a nursing home. These two persons are some years younger than I am, but they need and deserve the excellent care they are receiving. The gracious nurse intercepted me in the nursing area that my friend was out of consciousness. I then talked to a lady in Alzheimers, attended by her husband, and came home – blest. Here is life, to be lived every day using each day to fulfill life’s quiet needs, to develop as God’s children, to form life in our families, and with the understanding of God’s transition meaning as it was with Abraham.
(While I was editing this Page, my elder daughter noted to me that I missed a lunch date today.) *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020