Don’t worry, my demise is not imminent. Not that I know of.
A strange thing happens when you reach a certain age. You start paying close attention to how old others are when they pass on.
Everybody remarks when someone dies young. It’s a tragedy whether they are 8, 28, or even 48. But after a certain age, people stop remarking. Only old people like me pay close attention to how old older people are when they die.
I admit this will sound morbid, but when I hear news of a famous person’s death, the first thing I want to know is, how old were they? 70-ish? Goodness, that’s me! In their 80s? I calculate, how many more years do I have to live? In their early 90s? I ask, how frail were they and for how long were they frail? Quality of life becomes of vital concern.
When folks pass in their mid-late 90s, I think, well that was a good age to transition. Anything in the three digits is a call for serious celebration.
I’ve referenced my hero of longevity before. Lord willing, Luella Dreyer will turn 106 next month. When she was 98, she was visiting shut-ins 20 years younger. Since then, time has affected her sight, hearing, and mobility, but not her mind or her indominable spirit. She’s an inspiration to us all of what it means to age well. Ready to meet her God, she knows she’ll have an eternity in that marvelous Presence, so she willingly takes in all her Maker has for her in the here and now.
I listen to centenarians share secrets for making it past 100. A range of options are offered, often contradicting what other centenarians say. From my casual observation, three things stand out – inheriting good genes, making it in relatively decent mental and physical shape to your 99th birthday, and having a special joie de vivre – French for exuberant enjoyment of life.
There are no guarantees. Rough living, even if only in our youth, can keep us from surviving too long – or in very good shape. Then there is the silent killer, dementia, which we are still far from fully understanding. And, of course, accidents do happen.
Sometimes, accidents are caused by one’s own risk-taking, something we’re more inclined to do at younger ages. But you can be sitting at home and have a tree fall on your house. Or driving cautiously when an impaired motorist veers into your lane. Or be attending church and a tornado blows through. Yet if we cower in supposedly safe places out of fear of random accidents, we lose the very thing that gets us further down the road – that joy of living.
Certain circumstances in life make attaining good health, let alone longevity, difficult. Poverty greatly impacts the kind of health care you get, which in turn affects your life expectancy.
Aside from poverty, serious health issues, whether genetically, environmentally, or behaviorally induced, can shorten life and affect quality of life. And then there are all the effects of living through trauma and abuse, whether specific to you or mega-geographical in scope, such as war or natural disaster.
Even with all these challenges, certain people live well beyond expectations. Like the odd cigarette smoker or the holocaust survivor. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, complicated creatures with untold variables built in. In the end, we can only influence our life expectancy so much.
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I have no idea how long I will live. Like most everybody else, I hope to live long and not experience dementia or other severely life-restricting conditions. But we are given no guarantees.
Psalm 90:10 states that “the length of our days is seventy years – or eighty, if we have the strength.” Genesis 6:3 puts the limit on human life at 120 years. Are these verses stating cohesive natural law? As in, is the first reference an average lifespan and the second our outer limit? Or are they merely observations from different eras of human existence? Human lifespans have varied over time.
I am a white male living in the US. Life expectancy for my demographic is 75.6 years. But that includes people who die younger. Now that I am 70, the average person in my cohort can expect to live to 85.4 years of age. If I am average, I have 15 years left, which would put my departure from this life somewhere around September 2040. A sobering thought.
My mom lived 85.8 years. For her last decade or so, she suffered from strokes and dementia, likely shortening her lifespan. Surprising us all, dad made it to 92.5. For the last 3 decades of his life, we thought he could go anytime due to a heart condition. His father had died at age 67 of a heart attack, but my other three grandparents lived into their 90s.
In my youth, I counted the years till I could drive or get out of high school or college or finish grad school. But I never thought about how much time I had left to live. Actuarial tables were about as fascinating as watching paint dry. Whatever I was doing in life had no time limits. Old age and death were distant prospects.
Then I turned 68, “retired” from permanent, fulltime work, and started my next chapter. I call it active retirement, meaning, I am doing work and ministry as it comes along and at a pace I can enjoy. Until…
Until I can no longer do it.
Which is a strange feeling – living knowing that life is headed downhill. Whatever you can do now, you won’t be able to do later.
I’ve come to the age where I probably don’t have 30 more years more, maybe not even 20. Now I count each day as a gift. I pray not just to live, but to live fruitfully. To make the most of the days I do have. To rejoice that I still have agency over each of those days, if not the total number.
Kim and I have been planting bushes, trees, and perennials, things we hope to enjoy 15 years from now. When it will be harder to dig.
I’ve been putting in paver/gravel paths where our yard gets muddy or weedy. Places where I don’t want to be tripping and falling in 15 years. Tasks that I may not have the agility, strength, energy, or money to do in 10.
I’ve been looking for gig work. Work appropriate for a guy whose 70. Work less stressful. Work that will enhance what we’ve already saved. I’m not talking gobs of money to stash away. I’m talking about making sure Kim and I are covered as long as God keeps us on earth where money is necessary. 10-15 years from now, I can’t count on mind and body to keep producing and providing.
I’ve been sorting and digitizing old photos – photos that date back generations into the 19th century. Photos of interest to family, friends, or those great folks at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. I’m doing this now because my forebears didn’t get around to doing it and I’m concerned these photos may not survive me.
I’ve been writing what I want to preserve for posterity. Insights, experiences, events, accomplishments, challenges of potential interest or help to future generations. I’ve no idea whether I’ll be affected by dementia like my mother and grandfather. But I sense if I don’t write now, I may not be able to do so in another few years.
I’ve been asking God how, in this stage of life, I can be true to my calling of helping succeeding generations fulfill God’s calling on their lives. Some months ago, I wrote about the four goals I have in life. Embedded in these points is my commitment to reproduce these goals in the lives of others, what my friend Brady Bobbink calls “2 Timothy 2:2-ing it to the world”: “And the things you have heard me say…pass on to reliable people who can in turn pass them on to others.”
And I’ve been thinking a lot about God – reading, studying, listening, praying, worshipping. For almost my whole life, I’ve been committed to serving God. But now I think about what more I need to learn before I enter eternity. I want to know God as much as I can from this side. Who knows how much longer I have to do that?
In all this, I am preparing for the day when I can no longer prepare.
***
Dr. Daniel B. McGee, my ethics professor in grad school, taught that we are a culture that prioritizes productivity when it comes to human value. If you are not adding value to society – think ways we label people like lazy, undesirable, useless, irrelevant, unwanted, unproductive – you have no value as our world counts value.
McGee noted how society views certain life stages as less productive – stages like being pre-born or being old. Society often, but not always, sees value in the potential for productivity in pre-borns and youth. But what about children or adults with disabilities – and thus with limited potential? Or people as they age and lose their ability to produce? Do these people lack or lose value because they are less productive?
That is not God’s way of looking at life, McGee said. In God’s economy, value is not based on productivity. Every stage of life has intrinsic value.
As I sat listening to McGee nearly 50 years ago, a consistent life ethic formed in my mind. In time, I discovered kindred spirits who were ahead of me in formulating serious thinking around such a way of life.
I was getting my doctorate in ethics in Baylor University’s religion department. We had to take a certain number of courses outside of the department. I chose two external tracks. One of those was in a relatively new field at the time – gerontology, the study of aging. I’m sorry I no longer remember that prof’s name, but he was an engaging pioneer in the field.
I can’t say I’ve used my gerontology notes much over my career, perhaps only in a very broad sense. But the prof, whose name I can’t remember, instilled in me the value of old people, regardless of their life conditions.
What both professors taught me is that all of human life has value, regardless of how society evaluates productivity. Human value is not found in productivity, but in the truth that God has created and deeply loves each individual – and has destined each and every person for eternity. The value is in the imago Dei imprint – that we all have the Creator’s image stamped on our very beings.
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Which brings me back to my desire to know what this next stage of life is all about for me. My desire to do this or that with the next 10-15 years of my life is not because my life needs value. My value is in Christ, pure and simple. I cannot add more value to my life than it already has. But I do want to make the most of the gift of life God has given me – for as long as I have it.
In Ephesians 5:16, Paul employs an interesting phrase. He’s talking about how we need to be careful how we live, about how we need to be wise and understand what God’s will is. The phrase, as written in the NIV, is, “making the most of every opportunity.” Other translations read “redeeming the time.”
I have no idea how much longer I’m going to live. As long as Luella Dreyer? I doubt it. Another 25 years, maybe? 10, perhaps less?
However many days I have left, as long as I have agency, I pray I make the most of every opportunity. I pray I redeem whatever time God grants me.
I think I’ll make that last paragraph a daily prayer. How about you?
I can’t guarantee you’ll stay young if you subscribe to my weekly posts, but it will engage your mind and your spirit and that helps keep you healthy. Besides it’s free – and thus the price won’t be affected by inflation! Hard to beat a deal like that!
By the way, that photo is of me – my first Christmas photo. Thought you’d recognize me!