Rocking Chair

I’ve still got neon in my veins.

Looking in the mirror, I can see that I have changed, but it is more apparent in old photos.  There is no doubt that the outer man is perishing.  Inwardly, however, I feel the same as ever.  I’m not saying that some of my ideas are not refined, only that many of my basic viewpoints and desires persist.

Many years ago, a ninety-four year old man reflected, “I know I’m old, but I don’t feel old.”  I’m learning what it means to have yearnings betrayed by the body.  At the same time, I am capable of being enthused by the dreams of a young man when not feeling downright persnickety.

There is a sense in which aging focuses a person.  I have always felt this was the case (even in years gone by), but I saw it in myself when I went back to college for a postgraduate degree.  

While always a good student as you might imagine, I was calmer and more methodical in my studies as an older person.  One reason for this may have been that my teachers were more peers than anything else.  Another was that I already had a girlfriend.  In any case, I did good.  I have observed the same sort of thing in seasoned men and women in the courses of other endeavors.  They win their races by steady progress, prioritizing and ignoring distractions.        

I have hoped that I would be one who ages well.  Not that I’d like the moniker of “well- preserved,” but I hope to preserve something.  It is not easy to decline with grace when the loss of grace is a part of the decline.  All of life is a trade-off, and we find that one area increases as another diminishes.

It has been said that youth is wasted on the young.  While I understand the point, the Bible indicates that there are phases of life with accompanying strengths and weaknesses.  The life we live is not the life of the Garden, but there are remnants of perfection in each stage of living.  We should not give up on life while in the process.  To do so is to squander the gift of God.

This grey hair don’t mean a thing.  Much I wanted to accomplish in my youth wasn’t that big a deal.  I say that purely from the perspective of having achieved some thresholds to find them not as grand as hoped.  With dimming eyes I see perhaps greater worth to pursue with the time I have left.  And the fire still burns.

One’s latter years may exceed the former as the trappings of greener times fall away.  It’s easier to think today though it is also easier to lose a train of thought.  In some ways, the things that really matter have become clearer to me even though evidence of the Fall is also clearly seen.  Don’t count me out just because my “minutes played” have decreased.  

Scripture tells us that the inward person is renewed daily.  In our thermodynamic world, there is an inexhaustible supply of hope and vitality for the spirit.  Jesus told the woman at the well that He could give her a spring of living water welling up within.  Those of us who have accessed the life of Christ through trust in Him know it’s true.  Though we diminish, life in the Spirit never dims.  It shines ever brighter to the full day, and there is no point at which we become less vibrant or useful to God.

Changes are sure to come, but the real meaning and essence of life remains.  No one is useless to God, and the best of our lives are, perhaps, not actualized and yet to be.  

Sterl