This is the reflection of Pat Edmonds of August 18th 2024 as delivered at a joint service of Forest Home and Dalston-Crown Hill United Churches. The scripture reading that day was: Phillipians 4:5-9.
“In my home congregation we hold an annual celebration for the nonagenarians of our community, those who are 90 years young or more.
A few years ago 90 seemed very old to me, but now as I am past 80 myself and work and worship along side those in their 80’s and 90’s my perspective has changed. Age is only a number. It does nothing to define a person. According to a well-known bumper sticker “Age is not important unless you’re a cheese!”
As Edna McCann says in her Heritage Book “Youth is not a time of life – it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul and turns the growing spirit back to dust.”
Joking about our age comes easily. We tell each other that aging begins when we bend down to tie up our shoelaces and wonder what else we can do while we’re down there. Comedian Red Skelton used to tell his friends that he had a terrific morning ritual. “You know how I get up? I open my eyes. If I don’t see flowers or smell candles I must be alive. So I get up.” It is less a laughing matter when neither body nor mind will respond as quickly or accurately as we expect or want.
Body and mind may feel some slippage, but Spirit remains. God gives us our bodies and minds on loan to be turned in at the end of our days- it seems sometimes on the installment plan! First our eyes go, then our ears and so
on and so on, BUT our spirits are a permanent gift. It was the spirit she had in mind when one person said “Growing old is no more than a bad habit that a busy person has no time for”.
The spirit matures with passing years. It provides power to relate when more elementary physical and mental ties begin to weaken. Romance, wisdom, insight, are all gifts of the spirit. These are gifts to be burnished and enjoyed by those who are aging. There is joy in simplicity. Marital ties, family links, and spiritual bonds grow golden with time. It has been said that as we age, we become more of who we were meant to be.
With aging often comes that phase of life we refer to as retirement – a phase I entered myself 25 years ago. The wife of a recently retired fellow described retirement as “twice as much husband and half as much salary.” I think my spouse might have said “ half as much wife and half as much money” for he asked not long after I retired “How did you ever have time to work?” Of course, they were both jesting with these remarks, but they do indicate two areas of genuine concern for retired couples, how to spend more time and considerably less money.
The Bible offers little direct help. Those people in its pages knew nothing of retirement, a 19th century concept determined by a life expectancy quite different from that in Biblical times, and indeed different also from the expectancy of the 20th century. The Christian understanding of life, however, offers some help and guidance.
The apostle Paul lived a long life for his day. In prison and under house arrest, he had time to reflect on the final stage of life. He did not retire, but offered some suggestions about the aging process in his letters, especially the letter to his special friends in Phillipi. He writes, “Finally, whatsoever things are true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable excellent …if there is anything worthy of praise, let these things occupy your mind and the peace of God will stand guard over your hearts.” Here is one of the secrets for successful aging: Maintaining a positive attitude.
Another secret is found in the story of Sarah who laughed when told that she would bear a son in her old age. God laughed with her and the child was named Isaac, which means laughter. Her laughter arises from the eruption of new possibilities. When all seems sealed, finished, totaled, God still offers life and laughter. I don’t know if it’s recorded in the Bible that Jesus ever laughed, but He certainly fixed it so we could!
The third secret is contained in the letter of a ninety-two year old Vancouver Island woman, “I am hoping to live to be a hundred, if I can be useful in any way to anyone and to our Lord.” She did live to be a hundred and kept that third element of healthy aging until the end – being of service to others!
Viktor Frankl, a noted psychiatrist, approaching his own retirement, sums up the attitude of a person of faith.
- Give the world the gift you do best.
- Take from the world the gifts it offers through encounters, experience and personal relationships.
- Relieve suffering that has come to others by a fate they did not create.
Retirement offers new opportunities for living our faith. Reflect carefully on just what gifts you do have to offer. Many retired people have found a new lease on life through volunteering for something as simple as delivering Meals on Wheels, becoming a hospital volunteer, mentoring a troubled young person, selling daffodils for the local Cancer Society phoning shut-ins or joining the pet therapy program.
Retirement also allows us to receive the world’s gifts in a manner impossible in our more time-bound lives. Travel is a prized privilege of retirement. It is a possibility not only for those who have been able to save substantially. For while world travel is stimulating, leisure time can also allow fresh exploration close to home. Most of us have commented on how we only see the local “sights” when escorting visitors. Retirement gives us time to “smell the roses” and spend more time with friends and family.
However, the retirement years can be soured by a critical spirit that denies good to new ideas and new inventions, that puts down younger people, that constantly dwells on the frustrations of aging, that always looks backwards. OR like Paul we can combat these tendencies by associating with vigorous young people and drawing on their youthful enthusiasm in exchange for our vast wisdom and experience. Paul assured his readers of God’s gift in return, “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Like Paul and Sarah, many have lived into old age in triumph. Judith Viorst in a book aptly titled “Necessary Losses” writes, “It is easier to grow old if we are neither bored nor boring”. She echoes Carl Sandburg’s advice in his own old age, “It is good for a man of many years to die with a boy’s heart.” Here is the New Testament attitude to life: the spirit of adventure, of wonder, of reverence, of a fresh and curious mind, of laughter and of an enthusiasm for each day granted.
Growing old while being favored by God is truly something to which we can all aspire. Favored by God doesn’t mean we will lead a life free of trouble and pain and disappointment. It means that throughout all of our lives, God has been and will be with us. Just that. Those who grow old gracefully have about them a calmness that takes one day at a time, with each day filled with the awareness that they are not alone. They may not be able to move arms and legs as easily as they would wish, but there is a smile on their faces or in their eyes because their spirits are God’s forever.
We all grow old by the grace of God. We have no control over our years. Accidents and disease are part of living. Why they strike one person and not another is not ours to know. Growing old gracefully, however is possible for all of us, whether we live for two more weeks or twenty more years. Because God’s grace is a free gift, if we reach out and take the gift, open it, and enjoy it, that grace will be evident in our lives.
“This is a day which the Lord hath made
As every day will be
Today, tomorrow, yesterday
Until eternity.
The past is gone
Tomorrow still to come,
We have just today to use
As we choose.”
Choose to work for the Lord every day of your life. The pay may not always be much but the retirement plan is out of this world!”
Pat Edmonds
Licensed Lay Worship Leader