Notes on Jeremiah

Over the past eight years I have experienced persistent disequilibrium over our national state of affairs. My discomfort can be categorized under three headings:

The moral whirlpool. When I was a boy we sang a chorus that began, “I was sinking deep in sin…” When I was old enough to act like a smart aleck, I would sometimes add, “Wheee!”

Sinking into depravity is no joke now, with no bottom touched yet. The focal point is a man running for president who paid off porn stars not to talk about his sexual relations with them, a man who lies more often than a meth addict, who enjoys cruelty and insults, and who tried to undo his loss in an election through mob violence. He couldn’t run for president without a very high percentage of Americans willing not just to look the other way, but to say “Wheee!” We seem to have lost any sense of decency, and not just a few of us.

Church seduction. The most depressing part is the church’s leading role. And not just any church—the evangelical church! Those of us who claimed to believe that Jesus Christ could change lives, who believed in the family, in marital fidelity, in obedience to the law, who wanted to follow Jesus in love for neighbor–we’re no longer even remotely credible. We have become a branch of a political party, one in which any immorality can be accepted so long as we win.

American unexceptionalism. I lived in Kenya for four years beginning in 1978, and I observed the politics of that place with great fascination. I know I speak for many Americans who have lived overseas when I say that I could observe abuses of power, graft and corruption and occasional illicit government takeovers without feeling personally involved. I knew America was different. I believed that America’s democracy, while not flawless, was fundamentally governed by well-grounded laws and democratic elections. I still do, but I no longer see it as axiomatic. We might easily become like Venezuela, where power, not law, dictates. I see much more clearly what the founders meant when they suggested that our republic could only endure if its citizens were moral. And I’m currently quite unsure that we are.

With these things in mind, I have spent the past few months studying Jeremiah. Some might say this is like my grandfather’s prescription for a toothache: take a mouthful of castor oil and sit on a hot stove. Jeremiah does not cheer you up.  It is a long, long book full of warnings and indictments.

Jeremiah’s analysis of Israel covers the same headings that I see in America. For the moral whirlpool, read idolatry. Israel made the most basic, most tragic error that any people can: they made worship of the author of life into a buffet choice. Try a little Yahweh, and a little Baal. Leave room for dessert. That is surely how most Americans view religion today, and it helps explain our current fix. If you can pick and choose your gods, you can pick and choose your morals.

For church seduction, read “priests and prophets.” The very people who should uphold the worship of the one true God were actually okay with lighting some incense to Baal. They deeply resented Jeremiah’s criticisms! Like today’s evangelicals, they assumed they were the godly ones, but in reality they had been seduced by comfort and power. No longer did they grasp the unique splendor of the Holy One.

For American unexceptionalism, read “Babylon.” Israel had been warned of downfall for hundreds of years. Prophet after prophet after prophet foretold destruction if they failed to repent. You know how they responded? They stopped listening. Jeremiah’s words were like a mosquito buzzing in their ears. All they wanted to do was to swat it. They knew themselves as the God-chosen people. The temple, God’s home, was theirs. All around their part of the Middle East they saw violence and destruction, the power of Babylon destroying other nations very much like theirs. But they did not believe it could affect them. They thought they were special, just as we do.

**

I was talking to a good friend recently who said he was leading his men’s group in a study of Isaiah. I was stunned when he told me they are taking it a chapter at a time, week by week, expecting to spend more than a year studying it.  Isaiah, being so long, is impossible to swallow in the usual six-week gulp. Most studies end up with, at best, a Cliffs Notes version. My friend said he had personally found Isaiah very helpful. It had calmed him. The grandeur of God made our troubles seem smaller.

Jeremiah has done the same thing for me. They are both long books full of warnings and indictments, though Isaiah has more passages of hope to light the darkness. The biggest difference I see, however, is that Isaiah ends in suspense. We don’t know whether Israel will respond to the warnings. In Jeremiah, by contrast, the disaster plays out before our eyes. Israel is destroyed, its people taken into exile, the Temple torn down, the houses and palaces burned. And Jeremiah himself suffers just like everybody else. He is captured by rogue forces and dragged to Egypt, where he struggles and dies. He is not a mere observer, a prophet of doom. He is a full participant; doom comes to his door and carries him off.

Could our ending be like Jeremiah’s? Could we see our nation sunk even deeper into moral depravity? Could our churches become a joke, a byword for hypocrisy? Could we see our much-loved stable government destroyed by coups and corruption and the unquestioned rule of power? Could we, like much of the world, become helpless victims of political violence?

Yes, yes, and yes. And every one of us, me included, would suffer. We would live in a nation that is a shadow of its former self, and in a church that has lost its character, with the knowledge that we let it happen.

It could be even worse than that. Once evil forces are let loose, we have no idea how bad life could become.

Jeremiah warns us. The worst that we fear, we really should fear.

Jeremiah also reminds us that, no matter what comes, the world we live in belongs to God. His intentions for our world are entirely good. Planet earth will not be destroyed but will flourish in the end. Will we live to see that good ending? Jeremiah didn’t and we may not either—except on the other side of death. God is there on that other side. The promises of God are not extinguished by Israel’s tragedy, or ours.

**

From Jeremiah I have gained a certain amount of calm. The times are evil, but God is great. Judgment may come on us, and we may not be spared. Regardless, we remain in God’s hands. We can trust him.

That might seem to suggest an otherworldly calm that removes me from the battle. Jeremiah could never teach that. He is a fighter, a man of unremitting truth telling. His book shows him not only speaking out but giving his message in graphic form—making a yoke to put on his own neck; watching a potter make and remake a pot, burying a scarf in the ground to witness its decay. And the response is graphic as well: the king’s patient burning of his text, page by page; Jeremiah’s imprisonment in a muddy cistern where he is expected to die; his capture in chains by the Babylonian army. All through, Jeremiah can’t be shut up. He keeps on telling the truth. He warns. He insists.

And so should we. The only weapon we have is the truth. Let us not grow weary in speaking it.

The Inside of Aging in Print

I want to let you know that my collection of short essays, The Inside of Aging, is out both in print and on kindle. A mere 78 pages, it’s not meant to be a practical guide, nor to cheer you up. I’ve written down my thoughts and observations about the actual experience of aging, good and bad. Nearly all this material comes from my blog. Some people suggested that they would like a durable copy. Presto, a book. I hope it will help you to think more deeply about the life God has given us all.

Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Tim+Stafford+Inside+of+Aging&crid=3HG8IQA3HE25O&sprefix=tim+stafford+inside+of+aging,aps,219&ref=nb_sb_noss

The Inside of Aging: Your Reaction?

Dear reader,

I posted these reflections on aging because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. My question for you is: would you like to see these collected in a short (100 pages or so) book? You can simply say yes or no, and feel free to add reactions and advice. I would appreciate your feedback.

Tim

The Inside of Aging: What It All Means

This is #23 in a series of essays on aging.

Aging involves inevitable disappointment and loss, and often includes suffering and grief. We naturally ask why. Has God deserted me? Why can’t I live in peace?

The increase in suicide may be a response to these questions. It is above all else an assertion of individual autonomy: “I will decide the timing of my death. This is my business, and nobody else’s.” Underneath that assertion is a question: Why am I still alive, when I have nothing important to do and nobody really depends on me? Why am I still alive, while I suffer? If I feel I have done everything on earth I care to do, and if life is filled with loss and disappointment, why not choose to end the game?

Those are hard questions to answer, and it is not my interest to disparage them. Indeed, I think they are unanswerable outside of a God-centered perspective. People who take the Bible seriously, however, have a framework for responding. There may be no precision to the answers, because we cannot see into the other side of death. God will meet us there, and we will see him “face to face.” Our lives in that other realm remain shadowy. What will we do? Will we see a connection between what we do here and now and what we do then?

It does seem clear that there is a connection. The promise of heaven is not like reincarnation. It is we who will rejoice there, not some other creatures. And what we will do and think will not be the actions of somebody alien to us. It will be us as we have become.

It stands to reason, then, that whatever we experience in the last days of our life is in some way a preparation. Given the amount of disappointment and loss involved, we can speculate that we are meant to experience purification—that our earthly hopes and our earthly ambitions are being squeezed out of us so that we can more easily absorb, without distraction, the most sustained and euphoric infilling of our lives.

We live today by faith, hope and love. Faith is famously “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) Our faith is in God, whom we do not see, and the future he has for us, which is equally unseen. We are told that what God has planned will be good beyond our dreams. We believe we are being readied for it. That may not make loss and disappointment easier to take, but it ought to fortify us. We put our faith and trust in God; he knows why we are here.

The Inside of Aging: Finishing Well

This is #22 in a series of essays on aging.

One of my wife Popie’s mantras is: “finish well.” She applied it to our kids when they were young, whether in regard to a school year, a class, or a sports team. It’s easy to get tired, distracted or bored late in the season. Don’t do that. Keep your energy up. Renew your focus. You started strong; now finish strong. The prizes don’t go to those who run well on the back stretch, but to those who sprint to the finish line.

It applies to old age, too, but not in quite so straightforward a way. “Doing well” at 15 is not the same as “doing well” at 75.

Many of us become tired, sick, or discouraged as we age. I’s very easy to give up. When you can’t do the things you could as a younger person, it’s tempting to retire from doing anything. I have a friend in his nineties, in perfectly good health, with plenty of money, who appears to have surrendered. He’s isolated himself. He never takes initiative, and he’s resistant to invitations. He acts depressed but won’t admit it. For him, every opportunity is met by the same response: I’m tired. I’m ready to go; I can’t see why I’m still here.

I contracted pneumonia a few weeks ago, a disease I had never had before and hope I never get again. I was never exactly desperate.  I was always capable of shuffling to the bathroom or the kitchen or into the shower. However, I had no energy, no thought of energy, no will, no interest. I could barely make myself chew. And it went on for weeks.

When I came out of it, I thought: I bet other people feel that way. I bet sometimes they feel it for months, or years. I wonder if that’s how my friend feels. I’ve been impatient with his lethargy. Maybe I should rethink that.

None of us really knows what other people cope with. Given the variability of our existence, “finishing well” must become a flexible concept. It means one thing to somebody who is in good health. It means something different to the person recovering from pneumonia.

Nevertheless, certain aspects of life are integral, no matter what we face or how we feel.

Meaning. Finishing well means taking action that is meaningful to you and others. The travel and leisure that many people consider a good retirement rarely create meaning. Meaning involves giving, not taking. Some will find it in volunteering, some in grandparenting. Meaning means contributing, and it sometimes takes considerable ingenuity to find a way for it. I have friends in nursing homes who aren’t mobile and aren’t even mentally agile. Their contribution may be smiling instead of grumbling. That is meaningful, especially to those who care for them every day.

Focus. What are you going to do today? If you have no focus, life happens to you, and you go where the wind blows. That may be good if it’s deliberate. It’s not wrong to choose to spend the day wandering. The important word is “choose,” however. Most days, to finish well, you need to choose a productive way to spend your time. The psalmist prays, “teach us to number our days.” You number things because each one is distinctly important, and you don’t want to lose track of it. Days shouldn’t float by, one the same as any other. Each one deserves to count.

Doing the best you can. As we age, we discover that we can’t do what we once could. This is probably hardest for people who perform at a high level. Professional athletes find it true at the tender age of 35. At forty their careers are over.

I have a good friend who is a first-rate carpenter. He’s as good as he ever was at swinging a hammer or calculating a cut—maybe better. But when it comes to running up and down ladders, or hauling sheetrock, he can’t keep up with the young people, and it wounds him.

“Doing the best you can” means accepting your losses but not surrendering to them. It means focusing every day on making a contribution. You can’t do what you once could, but you can do something. You can give your best.

Love. For me, finishing well in old age means changing to a better value system. I can’t do what I once could, and my pride in my work (and my garden, and my backpacking skills, and my knowledge) begins to shrivel.

Actually, who cares? If anybody mentions that stuff at my memorial service, it will be only because I failed to grow in the most important department: love. I will have finished well if people remember me for my love.

If you maintain bitter quarrels to the end, if you’re not speaking to some people, you have not finished well. Finishing well requires reconciling, or at least trying.

Finishing well requires listening to others, paying attention to their needs rather than focusing on your own. That includes people you tend to dismiss—teenagers, perhaps, or blowhards.

Finishing well involves encouraging others even when you yourself feel discouraged. It means finding praiseworthy qualities and saying them out loud. It means comforting those who feel bruised and vulnerable.

If you show love in such ways, others will remember you with love. In fact, they will never forget you. You will have finished well.

The Inside of Aging: Time and Peace

This is #21 in a series of essays on aging.

The stereotype of the peaceful, patient grandparent is strong. Almost equally strong is older people’s determination not to submit to the part.

It’s not that we don’t appreciate peaceful, patient grandparents. To become one, however, feels like premature surrender. Our ambition is to be potent and lively and fun. We aim to keep skiing, keep dancing, keep laughing. Peace and patience seem far from that.

No question that we undergo a shift. We have more time, for one thing. Retired people complain that they are busier than ever, but the truth is that most have time to burn. True, stuff takes longer. We don’t have the energy we had; we take more breaks. Also true, lots of aging people take on big responsibilities for childcare or elder care. That is exhausting. But compared to the days of demanding fulltime jobs, of ferrying kids to games and practices, of cooking family meals and fixing the plumbing—not to mention remodeling the kitchen—we have time to read, to listen to music, to watch TV, to talk on the telephone. We make ourselves busy because we can.

The peace we gain is more uncertain. Anxiety often increases over time, and lots of older people fret and lose sleep over worries they can’t help. Sometimes the peaceful, patient grandparent is an act, disguising an anxious, critical inner voice or a sense of dread.

If, however, we take up our opportunities to gain wisdom, then peacefulness is a natural by-product. When you’ve seen a lot of life, and learned from it, you have a solid grasp of how to handle difficulties (quarrels, unexpected problems, disappointments). Worries take a lower profile. Panic doesn’t happen. The psalmist’s admonition to “number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” is a recipe for peace. Wise people are normally at peace.

If you think of it this way, it’s not so bad to become the peaceful, patient grandparent. And it’s not surrender.

The Inside of Aging: Bitterness

This is #20 in a series of essays on aging.

David should have died in peace. (I mean David of the Old Testament, who killed Goliath.) Despite a danger-filled warrior’s life, fighting to defend his throne from all rivals including his own son, he had retired from active service with his loyal son Solomon safely on the throne. His beloved nation of Israel was more secure than it had ever been, with no active schism and no enemy attacking its borders. Surely he should have died with one of his own psalms on his lips: “The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing.” (Psalm 23:1)

The reality was anything but that. David, too weak to get out of bed, called for his son Solomon and gave final instructions that might have come from a Mafia godfather. Joab, the fighting general who led my army? I want you to murder him. Shimei, the man I swore I would never hurt? That was my oath, not yours. “Bring his gray head down to the grave in blood.” (1 Kings 2:1-10)

Those are David’s last recorded words. Despite all God had given him, his soul was filled with bitterness and he had revenge on his heart.

It’s a terrible way to end your life, but I don’t think it’s terribly unusual. Bitterness can expand like a balloon until it fills all the space in your soul. Many people harbor bitterness until the end.

Frankly, I can’t imagine calling one of my children to my bedside with instructions for murder. My bitterness—most people’s bitterness—is tamer. Yet it remains toxic. If encouraged, it will poison my life.

Bitter about work. Those who invest deeply in their careers can become angry at how it ended. They got laid off. They got shunted aside from some big project. Somebody else got promoted. They never got admiration or appreciation for what they did. Nobody celebrated their retirement, or if they did, it wasn’t done with proper respect. Thirty years after their last day on the job, they can tell you how they were unappreciated. Bitterness lies just under the surface.

Bitter about what someone said. People say stupid things. Bitter people remember. They insist that they remember it accurately, and if someone tries to offer mitigating context, they have thought about it enough to argue forcefully that the offense was intentional. The words can be recited from memory years after the fact.

Bitter about lost opportunities. When you look back on a long life, it’s very easy to see the forks in the road where you perhaps took the wrong turn. At the least, you can imagine how life might have been different with another career, a lovelier partner, in a different location, with a different set of friends. Perhaps this is your fantasy world, but the root of bitterness can grow in such fertile soil.

Bitter about family ranking. Sibling rivalry is as old as Cain and Abel. Dig beneath the surface and those bitter memories float to the surface, unresolved, even without the perspective that time should give them. The longing to be the best, the most loved, the prettiest, the admired and respected, the one Mom cares for the most: this still drives people. To be the lesser brother is a bitter pill, and some people choke on it still when they are ninety and their rivals are in the grave. It makes no sense outside the family, but it can be a chorus in the head drowning out other sounds once it begins to sing.

The same rivalries can exist between cousins. It doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. Perhaps they love too much. As children they got in a tight clinch, and they have never been able to let it go.

Bitter about America. Those who fiercely love their country are often disappointed by it—and how could it be otherwise? A country is an amalgam of many people, with many traits good and bad. Idealism about the country you love can turn bitter, like any unrequited love. Listen to older people talk about America and you’re sure to hear at least a bit of this: disgust with the younger generation, with the government, with the regulatory environment, with traffic, with entertainment. (Terrible music, appalling shows.)

Bitter about God. At some point it comes down to this. The propensity for bitterness is really aimed at God. Some may shy away from saying it, but what other options are there? If bitterness fills your heart, then the Maker of All Things must be responsible. He has let us down.

Most people aren’t bitter. But maybe more are bitter than we commonly think. Some act like life is rosy but start complaining when you pierce the surface patter. Mostly they are older people. They have little future to look forward to, so they focus on the past. Very easily, memories curdle. Bitterness grows.

Maybe everybody has regrets, but why do regrets dominate certain lives? The answer is surely that a lifelong pattern leads to it: focusing on self, letting yourself wallow in self-pity without counterbalancing it with thankfulness. It may be generational. If you heard your parents complaining, you will likely do the same.

It’s possible to break this cycle, but it’s not easy. I doubt anyone can do it alone. Far better to catch the root of bitterness before it grows.

The Inside of Aging: Wisdom

This is #19 in a series of essays on aging.

Earlier I mentioned the psalmist’s prayer, “Teach us to number our days.” We are not to let days slip away but make the most of each one.

The prayer goes on: “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

The end result of carefully tending our days is a heart of wisdom. That is worthy of some thought.

“Heart” is best conveyed in the phrase, “the heart of the matter.” At the very foundation of life, the center-cut of meaning, the dense core of relationships, the bull’s eye of choice, stands wisdom. At our heart, we want and need wisdom. And wisdom is gained through carefully tending our days, “numbering” them.

Wisdom has little to do with intelligence. You can be very smart yet utterly foolish. Wisdom has more to do with managing things. The wise person knows how to get done what needs doing. She or he knows how to avoid quarrels and get along. You want wise people on a committee with you; you want them at a family reunion. (They are good with the drunken aunt or uncle. They know what to do with an oven fire.)

Wisdom is certainly not a guaranteed result of living. People can act like fools at 90 as well as at 30. Long life does, however, give you the chance at wisdom. Wisdom is the possible fruit of a long life.

When to keep your mouth shut.

Why it’s important to tell the truth and not cut corners.

The value of encouragement.

Choosing your companions carefully.

The dangers of debt.

Downfalls associated with sex.

Downfalls associated with drinking or drugs.

The gains of personal integrity.

The value of hard work

One could go on almost infinitely. Wisdom is not a list of virtues. It is far subtler than that. It is a skill, really—the knowledge of how to live. It comes as the fruit of experience, for those who pay attention. If you truly want to learn, you learn. Difficult dilemmas? You’ve seen those before and you know how to tackle them. You know what can work. You know what may lead to trouble.

Wisdom gets passed on, often from parent to child or from grandparent to grandchild. To “gain a heart of wisdom” usually takes a combination of mentors who exemplify it, plus the careful attention to life that wants to learn and pays attention to life lessons.

Most older people, I think, have a sense that they have acquired wisdom. That is to say, they think they know a thing or two. I certainly feel that about myself. It’s not a matter of thinking highly of myself. It’s simply an acknowledgement that I’ve been to enough rodeos to know when the bronco riding will begin. If you are frazzled by your son’s behavior, I might have some helpful ideas. Considering how to plan a big anniversary despite the fact that people have different agendas? I might be a useful counselor. When it comes to the practical stuff of life, I’ve learned something. Not everything. But something.

Those who have acquired wisdom don’t go around talking all the time. (That’s un-wisdom.) But they should look for opportunities to put their wisdom to work. Take their grandchildren for a hike and talk as they walk. Join a committee at church. Take somebody to breakfast who seems to be struggling.

Wisdom is not a program or a set of ideas you articulate. It’s situational. You respond to situations.

Older people do sometimes withdraw from an active life, and understandably so, considering their loss of energy and sense of disappointment. However, withdrawal means discarding their one growing strength. They have seen a lot of life. Their wisdom has grown. That’s extremely valuable.

Wisdom is for you, primarily. It should help you know how to live your own life. You want to get along with your family members—that takes wisdom. You want to plan for the future—that takes wisdom. You want to experience joy and peace—that takes wisdom.

Unlike most of your resources, wisdom can grow as you age. If you pay attention. If you count your days.

The Inside of Aging: Disappointment with God

This is #18 in a series of essays on aging.

My friend Philip Yancey once wrote a book entitled Disappointment with God. His uncle was scandalized and angry. “God never disappoints us,” he wrote Philip.

He was right, of course, but he missed Philip’s point. The problem is not with God, but with us. There is a mismatch between what we expect from God and what he provides. He may offer the very best, but it’s not necessarily what we have in mind. So we’re disappointed.

That comes to a head when we grow older. Because, let’s be honest, none of us wants to get old. Losing agility, strength, and energy was not in our plan. Neither were death and disease. They come, inexorably, as the years pass.

Christians have been told all their lives that God loves them and has beautiful plans for them. They know God’s promise to never leave them. Furthermore, God is a fountain of life; “surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

If that’s your expectation, you can certainly feel disappointed. To aging people who read their Bible, its promises frequently seem far off from their situation. They pray but it seems to make no difference in their quality of life. Such disappointment afflicts people of all ages, but it’s most potent for those of us getting older. Time grows short. Life seems unlikely to change for the better. This is what we get out of life, and it’s not getting any better. Rather, it’s going downhill. We’re loaded down with disappointments.

 Disappointment with God is a natural consequence. Lots of people don’t want to admit that—it feels wrong to say it—but they essentially give up on God as an active mover in their life. They may still find emotional comfort in singing hymns, in going to church, even in saying prayers, but they no longer expect God to make life better. They no longer expect God to show up.

At that point, they need to step back and re-evaluate what they expected of God. It would help if they would read the Bible with these disappointments in mind, asking themselves, what did God promise?

They’ll discover that God promises suffering. He promises all the blessings of the Beatitudes: poverty, sadness, timidity, dissatisfaction. Peter tells his church members not to be surprised at suffering; after all, they follow a Lord who suffered.

The Bible promises an upside-down world, in which the first come in last and the last first. This leaves little room for disappointment. If you end up on the bottom, you got what you were promised. But what a view from there, if we can open our eyes and see!

That is the promise of aging from a genuinely Christian perspective. As we suffer one loss after another, disappointment on top of disappointment, we can come closer to the perspective Jesus brought his disciples when he told them that he had to go to Jerusalem to suffer and to die. We are on that same trip. It leads to glory, but there are no shortcuts.

The Inside of Aging: Disappointment with Church

This is #17 in a series of essays on aging.

Young people run hot and cold, and that shows in the way they relate to church. They are rarely neutral. They either love it or hate it. At least, that’s my memory. I remember my fellow college students being fiercely loyal to a local church, loyal to the point of blindness. The pastor could do no wrong, and very bright students took his word for things without blinking.

At the other extreme were students who blamed church for half the evils of the world. They were intolerant of the church’s intolerance, and they expressed it vehemently.

It doesn’t look as though anything has changed. Blind loyalty or angry rejection: those seem to be the choices for young people.

You can find those attitudes in older people, but not as frequently. As we age we settle into ourselves, and don’t stray far out of our regular habits. Church, or non-church, is one of those. Maybe at one time, not attending church was an act of conscious rebellion. Not any more. By the time they are old, it wouldn’t occur to non-attenders to go to church on Sunday morning any more than to a strip club.

It’s not terribly different with those who attend church regularly. Are they loyal? Yes, but it’s rarely a fighting loyalty. It’s what they do. They know what to expect, and they like it.

That’s the context within which disappointment with church sets in. It usually begins with change. Music seems to be the most volatile subject: whatever is new or different, whatever displaces the familiar, will certainly upset some people, usually older people.

Any change rankles. The time of service—my goodness, it seems that some people think it was written on Moses’s stone tablets that church must start at 10:00. (Or 11:00, or 9:30. It doesn’t matter, as soon as you establish a time, it’s sacred.)

How about a new pastor? How about a new color of paint? Some people will fight and protest, but most just grumble. Or even less: they say nothing but suffer disappointment. Church just isn’t the same for them.

Old people lose control of the church. Largely, that’s because they don’t want to be in charge any longer. They don’t feel up to attending night board meetings. Tasks like organizing a luncheon or leading a Bible study demand more than they care to manage. In their younger years, they were eager to take things on. Now they want the comfort of church to continue to flow, just as it always has, without their leadership.

They miss the respect they got from leading, however; and they miss the sense of control. For aging people lots of life begins to feel beyond control.

Most carry on. They’ve weathered worse crises in life. Nonetheless, it’s a sorry reality when going to church becomes a bore or a chore. Not quite what you wanted it to be. Not quite what you remember.

Church is meant to be deeply optimistic. It’s based on idealism: that people can gather to love each other and adore God. Love, joy and peace are its aims. Community is its form. Family is its constitution. You should never feel disappointment with church. People do, however. Older people do. Yet they keep going. It’s a habit.