This past week we had a great Sunday celebration in our church -- "Five Angels Day", celebrating God's faithfulness to the five women in our congregation who are over 90 years of age. Their ages range from 90 to 103 and they are all vital, smart, wonderful women. Their faithfulness to God, in response to God's faithfulness to them, was a remarkable thing to consider.
In celebrating the wisdom of these elders, we were reminded once again of the great resource that older people can be for thier churches and communities. Intergenerational worship is so important to us, and we need to make sure we do not build artificial barriers between young and old. They need each other -- and all the ages in between.
When I lived in Kake, Alaska the Native people taught me to revere the elders. One of the great things about Native culture is their deep appreciation of their older men and women.
Other great thinkers have agreed that age is something that does not need to hold one back from continuing to contribute to church and community.
As President Abraham Lincoln once said, "And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." The writer Anais Nin wrote: "We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."
Ashley Montagu put it well when he waid, "I want to die young at a ripe old age."
Robert McAfee Brown said. "How does one keep from 'growing old inside'? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are indispensable." And Billie Burke said, "Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese."
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