Another birthday rolls around for me on Sunday. We will be away celebrating with family. Not only does this birthday have an impressive name – “Diamond Jubilee” – it feels significant.  A month or so ago I mentioned  J.I. Packer’s wonderful little book “Finishing Our Course with Joy,” and noted how he speaks of the “younger olds” (ages 65-75), the “medium olds” (75-85), and the “oldest olds” (85 plus).  Packer was among the oldest olds when he wrote the book and wrote with both wisdom and experience.

On Sunday I become just plain old. Happy Diamond Jubilee to me!

In “Finishing Our Course with Joy,” Packer quotes Shakespeare describing old age as “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything” (As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7). So far, I have avoided all that and have reasonable hope to join the psalmist at 80 or more by “reason of strength” (Psalm 90:10). In fact, and lest you wonder otherwise, my health seems to be quite good in all ways. This is not a lament on the imminent approach of the Grim Reaper, or even the limitations older age always imposes. Rather, it is the acknowledgement of a sense that I am in a final lap of a long race – how long the race and how many the laps, I do not know. I already love the CityAlight hymn that sings, “When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat ‘Yet not I, but through Christ in me.,’” but not yet do I think the race may be nearing completion.

The finish line may still be years away, and I hope it is, but the reality of a finish line stalks my thoughts in ways it did not even a decade ago. “While we can” and “for my age” are appended to many things I say.  “We’d like to travel to ________ – while we can.” “My health is pretty good – for my age.”

Growing old is the common human experience, and only tragedy spares some from it. In our culture, the journey to old age is one to be denied and the reality of old age is despised.  It has not always been so. Proverbs grants status to the old:
The glory of young men is their strength,
but the splendor of old men is their gray hair (Proverbs 20:29).

My golden jubilee may be a good time to acknowledge the splendor of turning into this last lap.

Indeed, this golden jubilee will be an occasion to celebrate God’s great faithfulness. Isaiah the prophet hears the word of God as God describes older persons who know him as those “who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:3–4).

As I shed “young old” for plain old “old,” may I remember the God who promises to carry me even to old age and gray hairs.  May I celebrate the One who has made and will bear, who will carry and will save. And may this not be for this last lap alone, but from my diamond jubilee to forever and ever.

There is a set of sidewalk slabs in the neighborhood with encouraging chalk-written messages for walkers and runners who happen by. A series of five slabs ask passing pedestrians to “be kind, be helpful, be friendly, and be loyal.” Maybe we should invite world leaders and some of those nasty online influencers to stroll by and heed the admonitions of who I assume to be the young sidewalk scroller. Our supplies of kindness, helpfulness, friendliness, and loyalty seem to be running low.

But the final admonition and then a separate message cause me to hesitate. “Be yourself” advises the sixth slab. “Love yourself,” read the words written across the driveway apron.

Please don’t tell the neighborhood chalk artist that I question her or his good intentions, but I do wonder how our age’s fascination with self has worked out. Self-concerned, self-defined, and self-promoting, our generation is lonelier, more anxious, more discouraged, more confused, than any other in recent or long memory.  In fact, we seem to be less kind, less helpful, less friendly, and less loyal as we look to politicians and influencers to define our reality and ourselves.

What about the self? I have known people who hate themselves and it is a sad thing with sometimes tragic consequences. “Hate yourself” would not be a good message for the sidewalk down the street.

What about the self? Continue reading →

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It may be that my simple mind does not understand the complexities of statecraft or that my aging mind does not like change. Whatever the reason, I would have been happy for the lake formally known as Ontario to retain its name of 400 or more years. In fact, I may wait a couple of years before I use TLFKAO’s new name. Who knows, it may want to go back to what it’s always been called.

This post is not about the politics of hydronomy, though I do have my opinions about the politics of this name change. Frankly, I was never bothered by the name Gulf of Mexico and tend still to use it when we are in Florida visiting our son and his family who live on the Gulf Coast near Pensacola. And for me the name Ontario works by far the best for that least great of the Great Lakes.

This is not a post about politics, or lakes and their names, however. This is a post about anthroponymy (Yes, it’s a word. Look it up.) Continue reading →

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The headline on my newsfeed caught my eye.  “NO, Street Vagrants Are Not ‘Our Neighbors’.” But they probably are.

The article had to do with policies regarding the homeless in Los Angeles.  An apparently newly-elected city council member and Democratic Socialist used the term “neighbors” in arguing for a new, and arguably more lenient, policy regarding homeless encampments. Now, you can count me out when it comes to the growing support for the Democratic Socialists. My guess is that we are going to find the “warmth of collectivism” as cold as the wait for a Siberian spring.

After deciding I disagreed with the headline, I read the article.

The “not our neighbors” line was not clickbait set as a lure to entice curious fish; it was the heart of the post. The columnist wrote:“Neighbor” traditionally conjures the image of someone with an equal stake in one’s community as oneself, who shares one’s interest in stability, and who can be counted on, in times of need, for help. The occupants of the feces- and drug-strewn trash sites euphemistically referred to as “encampments,” as if they were part of a Boy Scout Jamboree, don’t fit the bill. Those transients are parasites on other people’s efforts to create a community. They contribute nothing, pay no rent or taxes, and inevitably bring lawlessness and predation. They almost invariably turn down the shelter and services offered by feckless outreach workers, since they want no interference with their unrestricted drug use.” Continue reading →

The book made its headlines ten years ago, but I just read it this week after reading an essay that mentioned it. The Amazon page from which I ordered “When Breath Becomes Air,” quoted a New York Times review describing the book as ““Unmissable . . . Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option.”  I will not forget about it.

The dust jacket of “When Breath Becomes Air” identifies the book as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer nominees page describes the setting for Paul Kalanithi’s writing, “At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live.” The book is the story of Kalanithi’s first 35 years of life – his growing up years and his decision to become a neurosurgeon, and of his last 20 months of living with and then dying of cancer.

“When Breath Becomes Air” was not the first in the genre of death journals, nor of the genre of a physician becoming the patient. With its fine writing and deep insights both into medicine and the search for meaning in life, it may be one of the best of either genre. The book is not a “Christian book” by any means, but Christian faith is present and real as Kalanithi seeks the meaning of life and of death.

I recommend the book without hesitation. Because it is ten years old, the hardcover edition is actually cheaper than the Kindle version. Buy it! Go to your local library and check it out! Continue reading →