Faith Works 6-30-18

Faith Works 6-30-18

Jeff Gill

 

Advice, counsel, and the dangers of comparison

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In this coming month, I will help an old friend celebrate a 90^th birthday.

 

I'm still not entirely used to having friends with 90^th birthdays.

 

Of course, I'm still not used to the ubiquity of Jay-Z and Beyoncé, the latter of whom I still recall seeing perform after a Columbus Clippers game at Cooper Stadium as part of "Destiny's Child," and who remembers "Destiny's Child"?

Okay, maybe I'm closer to 90 than I used to be, too.

 

There's not much advice I can give a 90 year old. We will celebrate their life, and tell stories of years gone by, but the uneasy reality is that there are unambiguously fewer years ahead than there are behind. For my friend, and for me, as a matter of fact.

 

Another friend much of my age said something about "middle aged" referring to us both, and my retort was "you really think either of us are making it past 115?" Middle age implies you are in the . . . middle. And I'm pretty sure I'm over it.

 

So along with much older friends and associates, I've got more retrospective than I do anticipation. Yet I anticipate much, even if it isn't for me, personally. This gets into the old "planting trees from which I will never harvest" adage. If I picked fruit from trees placed a century ago, there's an implied obligation to me for planting with a century hence in mind. I will not taste those apples or peaches or walnuts, but as I've enjoyed, so must I prepare, or the harvest won't be there in that distant day which I will never see.

 

Truth be told, like many pastors of the traditional churches in a community like ours, I spend a significant chunk of my time in ministry serving those who are in their eighties and nineties. During a couple of recent Sunday mornings, I did a quiet mental tally, and confirmed what I suspected: our church is about 25% those in their eighties and nineties, 50% in their sixties and seventies. All the rest of us fit into that last 25% of the total. Give me three more years and I'll join that majority above sixty.

 

Even so, a challenge for our wider church connections in the historic mainline/oldline faith traditions is seen in the district clergy meetings I attend, where back in 1989 I first attended as the youngest ordained minister in the room. Nearly thirty years later, when our student assistant minister isn't present, I'm still the youngest at our gatherings. And friends, I am not young. I'm not old either, of course. But I am . . . seasoned.

 

Which has me reflecting in a state which is aging, in a community where the median age is creeping upwards, preaching in an area where people tend to stay put and live in the home they first bought more than almost any other part of the country, about getting old. We are, that's just how it is, and we have lots of resources for the aging in our neck of the woods: the Licking County Aging Program being a wonderful asset in this area, and so many other fellowships and community programs and care center facilities.

 

But as a Christian pastor with a theological frame of mind, I ask myself, I mull and wonder and ponder and reflect: what is aging for? What are we to do with aging?

 

One common assumption is that aging and the aged are now able to share their gathered wisdom, the accumulated knowledge and experience of the years behind them, with those who have many years yet ahead of them. We can communicate mistakes we've already made that they can skip, and talk about opportunities we passed by which they might seize.

 

Or might not.

 

My dad, who turns 84 tomorrow, was wonderfully candid with his four children about his mistakes, the hope being that, having heard his, we could skip them and move past such setbacks and complications. He had no expectation we would make no mistakes, he just hoped we could make new ones. But youth has a deafness all its own, and sometimes the older of us hear more clearly the warnings ahead. Let's just say we repeated a few, and created some innovative ways to make the same errors along the way.

 

As I preach in nursing homes and speak at retiree events and minister to those who have the gift of years, I continue to ask myself "what is aging for?" What does God intend for us to do with these years when mobility is limited, our physical skills may be less, and even our mental acuity is sharper in some ways, a blunt instrument in others?

 

I believe it has a place, and a purpose. We'll speak more on the subject this summer.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not as young as he used to be! But who is? Tell him about what you think aging is for at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.