On Saturday I pass from middle-aged to aged. I will turn 60. I will go to the movies and order not an “adult” but a “senior” ticket, saving $2.50. I will be able to get cheap coffee at McDonald’s. Please, no commiserations. Don’t tell me, “you are only as young as you feel.” I feel about, oh, 60. And I don’t want to hear Bob Dylan’s blessing, “May you be forever young.” (Bob, you know I’m a fan, but that sentiment is unworthy of you, especially since you have become way older than I am.) Being young is not intrinsically better than being old. Quite the contrary. I claim Leviticus 19:32: ” 32 “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.” Rise up, you young whippersnappers, and honor my face! Also Proverbs 16:31: “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.” I don’t know about the last half of that sentence as it applies to me. If sanctification is a linear progression, I should be farther along than I am, but I think it really comes from conflict, trial, and the continual pattern of repentance and finding Christ’s forgiveness, and I’ve certainly done that a lot. So I am embracing my senior citizenship. Plus, I am now embracing all of those old age poems by Yeats:
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hand and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress. (“Sailing to Byzantium”)
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