I have had the privilege, joy and sometimes burden of working with elderly folks as a pastor. I wrote that first sentence carefully and honestly.
Most of the time, shepherding elderly folks has been an absolute joy. They are kind, faithful, generous, consistent and relatively low-maintenance in their emotional needs. In fact, they tend to be forgotten by many pastors and many church members alike because they don’t require a whole lot of time and attention.
It has been a true privilege to sit at their feet and glean wisdom and insight about life as it was and as it should be. It has been a big responsibility to bring Biblical life wisdom to them as a pastor. Every now and again, I also have the privilege and responsibility to pastor some not-so-nice elderly people. This is not often, but it does happen periodically and I find that in these moments there is just as much opportunity to glean wisdom and insight, albeit from a different perspective entirely.
One of the nuggets of wisdom I have learned from elderly folks, especially folks I have pastored who have become elderly before my watching eyes, is that the attitudes people adopt in their 40’s and 50’s tend to become their whole personality in their 70’s and 80’s.
I had the express privilege of pastoring my maternal grandfather for about 2 years before he passed away. My grandfather lived a simple life of hard work for very little money. He drove a truck, raised chickens, worked construction and spent his last 25 working years serving at a ranch for troubled boys in Arkansas. The older he got, the sweeter he became. I remember him being a bit of a grump when I was a kid, and then he had a moment of mutual forgiveness with some folks that had done him wrong in his early years, and he became perpetually more and more kind and light-hearted. He loved serving and teaching the boys at the ranch. Conversely, his wife (my maternal grandmother) was one of my favorite people when I was a boy, and I believe myself (perhaps with hubris) to have been her favorite grandchild. I remember so many times she did fun and special things with me and delighted in me and the rest of her grandchildren. I also remember that she became very angry and bitter about something that happened to her in her 50’s (to this day I don’t really know the whole story) and I watched her become more and more sullen and short tempered, especially towards grandpa. When she began to show signs of dementia and lost her ability to show discretion and restraint, she became intolerably cruel to those who tried to minister to her. It was nearly the mirror opposite of my grandfather.
As I have gotten to know elderly folks who were of the more frustrated variety; short-tempered and unkind, what I have often discovered was trauma or struggle that turned them sour, and that sourness, un-addressed and un-dealt with, became rank bitterness later in life. I have also known elderly people who, like fruit, become sweeter with age. In fact, the fruit of the Spirit becomes more and more evident in these dear folks. When you learn their history, you see that it was in the middle age of their life they began to realize what life is really about: the blessings of the Gospel translated into love for others.
"Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life." Proverbs 16:31
Now Is The Time
Here is the takeaway from all of this open thinking: I’m at the most important and pivotal moment in my life right now to begin a trajectory of kindness. If I want to be an old man that people, especially my family and church, want to be around when I’m 80, I need to start living out the fruit of the Spirit right now while I’m approaching the age of 50. Now is the time to learn to be loving, not later. Now is the time to learn how to forgive and let go of hurt and offense, not later. Now is the time to recognize the joy of the Gospel and seek to find contentment in the simplicity of knowing God loves me and that I can love others. If I want to be the kind of old man people just love to be around, then I need to be a middle-aged man people love to be around. If I want to be seen as a man of wisdom when I’m old, I need to speak with wisdom while I am getting older.
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