“I will pour our my spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters
will prophesy. Your old men
will dream dreams. Your
young men will see visions.”
—Joel 2:28 quoted in Acts 2:17
I don’t know how it happened, but I find myself as surprised as anyone else. I’m talking about the fact that I — somewhere along the way — got old.
It was a bright, sunshiny day. The sky was blue and — up into this moment — I was feeling fine. I was in Lafayette for a church meeting. As I drove through town, I noticed a sign advertising a contracting firm that bore my name: “Isbell.” I stopped to take a picture of the sign. A very concerned looking man came running out: “Hey! What’s going on? What are you doing?”
I explained that I shared the name on the company sign. As it turns out, he, too, is an Isbell. We talked a while. As it turns out, this man’s first cousin is the fairly well known rock ‘n’ roll guitarist Jeffrey Dean Isbell (known as Izzy Stradlin).
During the conversation, he asked me, “How old are you?” I answered. “I’m 63.” He then ruined my day. He looked me over and said, “We don’t hold up very well, do we?”
It seemed an odd thing to say to somebody you just met, even if that person does share your last name. “We don’t hold up very well, do we?”
I suddenly felt older. Actually, I suddenly felt old. When I returned home, I was watching a tennis match on television.
I saw an elderly fellow walking across the tennis court. I was wondering who that old man was. I figured maybe he was a coach or a sports journalist. As it turned out that old guy was John McEnroe. I remember McEnroe as a much younger man. In fact, I remember when he was the new, 18-year-old superstar of tennis.
How did “Johnny Mac” get so old? How did I get so old? John McEnroe is three years my junior.
I suppose most of us begin to notice the truth of the old Latin saying “Tempus fugit” (time flies) by the time we reach our 40s. I remember the first time children from my first church’s youth group began sharing their own children’s graduations on Facebook.
I don’t bring this up to depress you. I don’t bring it up to complain. I simply bring it up to remind myself — and you — that we often fail to see ourselves; and we often prefer to dwell in a fictional world instead of the real one, the one where John McEnroe, Larry Isbell, and you — if you are fortunate — get older. There is wisdom in realizing we are not 26 years old forever.
I remember laughing at my grandparents when they would talk — ceaselessly — about their physical maladies and their medications. Now, my medication list is longer than theirs and I see more doctors than they did.
But Scripture — and common sense — teach us there is some advantage in getting older, even in getting downright “old.” Psalm 90 prays: “Lord, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” Wisdom does — often — accompany age. John McEnroe is no longer the angry, combative player he was up into his 30s.
He is now mellow, even friendly — with a sense of humor. Age can do good things for a person.
I recently saw a list of famous people who did not achieve visible “success” until they were at ages ranging from 44 to 73. That list included Harland Sanders who was 65 years old and thought all he had to look forward to was a meager retirement check. But Sanders had two things: He had a good mind and a relatives recipe for fried chicken.
The book of Ecclesiastes calls us to live in reality by telling us, “There is a time and a season for everything.” There is something natural and good about the different phases of life in God’s creation.
The Apostle Paul, in I Corinthians 4:16, tells us not to “lose heart” because, while we are “outwardly wasting away” we are “inwardly being renewed.” No matter what happens, in life or in death, we are held in the gentle hands of the living God.
Social psychologist Erik Erikson observed eight stages in the human life-span. Phases seven and eight are centered in the virtues of “care” and “wisdom.” The care phase begins at 40. The wisdom phase begins at 65.
I guess, in a couple of years, I will have reached the wisdom phase. The truth, however, is that Erikson did not see these phases as totally isolated from each other and he wouldn’t say that only the over-65 crowd has wisdom. I point them out as a reminder that — as we get older — the gifts we have to offer increase.
Consequently, when we realize we are “getting old” there are many positive traits that come with that realization.
Do you ever feel like you are getting old? Maybe it’s time to rejoice. Your gifts for family, church and community are still being born among us.
The Rev. Larry Isbell is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Columbus. He can reached at janetti600@comcast.net.
