Never Grow Old?

Rev. Joseph Awotwi
As I blog on aging an old song comes to mind. I do not recall who sang it. The words are, “Growing old, growing old, I wish I’ll never grow old.” A struggle for me that I have not shared is about aging and how we treat the body. It is a struggle for me because I see people who are making every effort to hide the fact that they are aging. This is done through manipulation of the body. They color the hair black to hide all traces of graying – a sign of growing old. My own dad at the age of hundred had “black hair.” I had never known him not to have black hair. I am not against looking young or beautiful but to what extent do we give credit to the God that created us when we choose to make our gray hair black? Or re-shape our eyebrows to make them look as Hollywood tells us they should look? What does that say about God’s creativity? Should we encourage breast augmentation? Or surgery to remove the wrinkles that tell that I am getting older? What do these practices say about our God’s creativity? If I really believe that God made me, and God’s creation is good, and God is proud of God’s creation why would I indulge in any such practice? It is an ongoing struggle – looking young and giving honor to God for God’s beautiful creation without the implied action that God did not do a good enough job. I love the Rabbinic story in Lauren Winner’s book about Abraham and his son and old age. I wish it were in the Bible!
When does aging begin? How can Christians grow old or age gracefully? As I thought about Christians aging I realized that I cannot recollect one time that I heard a sermon [or personally preached one!] that spoke directly to aging. Magazines and studies about aging are marketed to “mature citizens” instead of all Christians. How can our faith communities embrace and speak about aging when collectively we have not seen it as important enough to speak to it in an arena of all Christians? Alas! We have once again allowed the un-Christian culture to set the pace for us Christians to follow.
I happen to have a young-ish appearance. I recall when in the mid-seventies I grew a beard only because I wanted to look older. A supervisor about twenty years my senior said to me that she knew why I was growing a beard. Then added, “You think it makes you look old. It really does not.” Having burst my bubble, I considered dying my beard gray! When we are young we want to be old; when we are old we want to be young. How can we grow up and not sing, “I wish I’ll never grow old?” Is it because we are afraid of what happens to us in old age that someone sang those words?
When I look over my life I realize that what we do to the body and our concern (or is it fear?) about growing old are but symptoms of a deeper issue. That deeper issue is lack of gratitude to God for God’s creation – me. Tied to that is lack of thankfulness to God for how God has made me. In view of this awareness I wish all would join me this Lenten season in a new way of praying.
PRAYER: I thank you God for my kinky hair, now part black and part white. I thank you God for my eyebrows that you made in your wisdom and not by Hollywood standard. I thank you God for my nose that some think is too big and others think it is too small. I thank you for my lips that are not thick enough for some people who can’t even draw a lip, and too thick for others that cannot make a lip out of clay. Please Lord, double my love for you and my wisdom for each evidence of aging seen in me. Amen.