Words from WW Blog

“The glory of young men is their strength,
    gray hair the splendor of the old.” (Proverbs 29:20)

“Old age is upon me, and I shan’t outrun it. Perhaps I may act juvenile and fool it, or ignore it and it will go away. Maybe I can hide and it won’t find me, or tone up my body or botox my face and it will mistake me for discovering the fountain of youth. However, wisdom hints to me that I take old age by the hand and walk in peace toward the sunset.” -Rev. Bill Wolfe, 7/12/24

The doubts about an octogenarian president have topped the news headlines each day. Everyone from the towel boy at the health club to the well-groomed barber to the twentysomething guy wearing sandals and swim trunks in front of me at Chick-fil-A have opinions.

Me, I have emotions. They are mostly the kind that are displayed in sad-looking emojis that communicate despair, dread, and doubt. They are emotions that have me facing the sunset that draws nearer and the reality of death down the road a lesser bit than yesterday. But more than that, they are emotions that cause me to face that point where every AARP, Medicare, Social Security, pension-backed grey hair comes to. There are certain things I can no longer do like I used to, and there are other things I’m capable of doing, but OTHERS doubt that I can handle them more easily than I ever have before.

For you see, wisdom is much harder to see than frailty. The slowing of my walking pace is more evident than the wisdom I possess because of a wealth of past experiences.

As more people urge our president to step to the side, those of us who are in the twilight years of our lives are anxious. Many of us wonder if someone will try to push us to the side in the coming days as our culture becomes increasingly enamored with the excitement of youth that is often blemished with stupidity.

Perhaps the president is too stubborn to admit that he needs to step to the side, or maybe folk who are more thirsty for power than loyalty are forcing the issue. Either way, those of us who are too far behind age-wise are wondering if there is someone who has started doubting us.

And the attached quandary goes along with that: Maybe it’s time for me to step aside from some position or responsibility I’ve held for the past decades.

As my poem at the beginning said, “Old age is upon, and I shan’t outrun it.”

This entry was posted on July 12, 2024 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.