The calendar tells me I’m an old guy (64 but for only another 2 months). So do my memories of old people years ago as anyone back in the day over age 60 I considered a relative relic. My walks through museums now feature my childhood toys and my children’s books and furniture. So now I think of old people as those over 75, (ah, grace) and I hang around a few nearby 75 plussers.
I also learn from those seasoned folk across the country. J. I. Packer, soon to turn 84 and author of numerous books, most famous of which is Knowing God, is my current fuddy buddy. Of course, he does not know that: we’ve yet to meet. God willing this September, Betty and I will get a face-to-face with this modern sage at a conference in Texas. Professor/theologian Packer, considered a curiosity even among his rapidly decreasing Anglican Christians, has been speaking to a younger house of faith for more than 5 decades.
J. I. (close old friends call him “Jim”) speaks to truth, to finding it and hugging it. How? Packer’s books and his life declare we do well to pull alongside God and becoming a God-lover-student. Why do this?
Try this Packerism: “The uncertainty and confusion about God which marks our day is worse than anything since Gnostic theosophy tried to swallow Christianity in the second century.“ WHO talks like that anymore? Maybe people with the perspective of at least 8 decades. You can’t blow off quotes like that—let alone, answer him easily—-even when I realize I can’t remember meeting any “gnostic theosophists” at Walmart. That quote also hints that God is probably larger than my last experience of His nearness. Or my next one.
Point here? Who is older in your circle, near or distant, that you connect with to understand, learn from, or just bounce off your own latest fads, interests, passions or crises? I need wise people around me, men and women who have walked where I now walk, and made it. Scarred maybe, sidetracked occasionally, but still teachable, durable and maturing. I need face-to-face folk, but I can do distance-learning too.
Find or reconnect with that wiser, old[er] person. Today. I did, and I found refreshment for my own soul. And you?