I’M NOT OLD YET [Su, 6-21-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

I’M NOT OLD YET                [Su, 6-21-20]

I’m always surprised when someone my age is referred to as “old.” I shouldn’t be, so why am I?

Apparently, I’m not old yet, despite what my birth certificate, and the cradle roll at the Oxford, OH Methodist Church, would have you believe.

It’s not because I believe that nonsense about “you’re only as old as you feel,” and “age is just a state of mind.” In the first place, of the 26 known states of mind, 22 of them are stupid, so being a state of mind is no guarantee.

But sometimes I see a story about someone my age who is wise and calm and given to inspirational sayings. Such people have everything in perspective. They no longer worry about things they can’t control, which is everything. They don’t sweat the small stuff. They know this is the first day of the rest of their lives. They go through life as a gentle presence, no anxiety or angst.

I am none of those things. In fact, I am less calm and wise than ever, and instead of inspirational bromides, I say, as my brother-in-law, John Decker, says of the sayings on church sign boards, “Who writes this shit?” I have nothing in perspective. I worry about everything. I sweat all the small stuff. This isn’t the first day of the rest of my life; this is the last day of most of my life. I go through my final days as an anxious presence, riddled with existential angst. [At least I have achieved one thing on my bucket list, from my college days, when I first heard the phrase—riddled with existential angst.]

Yes, I’ve lived through wars, too—S. Pacific, Europe, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan. I’ve lived through social upheavals—segregation and lynchings and Civil Rights and Kent State and ERA and Title IX and Black Lives Matter and homophobia and the New York Mets of 1962’s “Can’t anybody here play this game?” I’ve lived through financial depressions and incredibly stupid and greedy politicians. I’ve lived through climate change and Flint water and floods and tornadoes and Jim Jones. They haven’t made me calm. They’ve made me scared.

In those stories of meeting the wise one, the teller of the story is so pleased to have made the acquaintance of this “old” person, this person of my own age. They have themselves been calmed by the presence and sagacity of this “old” person. That’s how I know I’m not old yet.

John Robert McFarland