aging on Purposelessness

Last fall, I was asked to lead a workshop at a church by their men's ministry. The topic was so popular that the women in the church threatened to dress up like men to crash the course. The course...

When you are in your twenties, you live to please other people. When you are in your thirties, you are tired of trying to please others, so you get miffed with them for making you worry about it. When...

Preparation for old age should begin not later than one's teens. A life which is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled on retirement.

Maturity comes from obedience, not necessarily from age.

I’ve reached an age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me.

The three immutable facts: You own stuff. You will die. Someone will get that stuff.

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

The world is more magical, less predictable, more autonomous, less controllable, more varied, less simple, more infinite, less knowable, more wonderfully troubling than we could have imagined being ab...

Life and time are ghosted creatures for us all. They belong to us—and are not ours at the same time.

For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, tho’, in another dress. And as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

In his book, Falling Upward, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the need for helpful discussion and direction on the themes that arise in the second-half of life, which, as he notes, presents a ...

Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.

Old men ought to be explorers Here and there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For another union, a deeper communion.

We admit that embracing slowness is hard . But slowness transforms us. One of our favorite theologians, Dr. John Goldingay, served for decades as a professor of Old Testament theology. Goldingay ...

Introduction Believed to be some of Paul’s last words of his long ministry, 2 Tim. 4:6ff are Paul’s closing remarks to his beloved disciple, Timothy. Imprisoned in Rome by this point, Paul concludes ...

Do you remember the first time you started to feel your mortality? Or perhaps, the first time you realized their was something wrong with your body? Your mind? At some point (for me it was my twenties...

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, t...

God of the Ages, Every day we come face to face with our mortality and the pain of this broken world Every day the need is great in body, mind, and spirit Every day brings disappointment  Every day b...

I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glor...

It is the privilege of adults to give advice. It is the privilege of youth not to listen. Both avail themselves of their privileges, and the world rocks along.

Yet somehow our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members...

Speaking on aging, the Catholic nun Joan Chittister has this to say: One thing this period is not about is diminishment, though physical diminishment is surely a natural part of it. It is, instead, ...

If youth but knew; if age but could.

Old age has its pleasures, which though different, are no less than the pleasures of youth.

Preaching Commentary Introduction Believed to be some of Paul’s last words of his long ministry, 2 Tim. 4:6ff are Paul’s closing remarks to his beloved disciple, Timothy. Imprisoned in Rome by this...

There are two periods in our lives when we have exceptional freedom: at college age and when we begin our retirement years. At those times, we have relatively few restrictions and obligations.

And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind.

Scripture is filled with examples of men and women whom God used late in life, often with great impact - men and women who refused to use old age as an excuse to ignore what God wanted them to do.

One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true wi...

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.