Getting Old… Father William & Father Abraham

Autumn leaves are starting to fall; trees are ‘releasing’ their leaves. Yesterday in church Andrea talked about Autumn as a time for letting go. We thought about releasing our worries, failures, fears…

After church I was talking to a gent in his sixties… He’s finding work tough with targets he can’t meet, endless, apparently pointless paperwork… He longs to let go of the anxiety that work brings him..

We describe getting old as entering the Autumn of our lives. The growth of spring and summer is leaving us… a time of slowing down… release…

On Friday, at our ‘Music for Wellbeing’ group, we sung the children’s song ‘Elephants have Wrinkles’. I looked around the room at folks singing with great enthusiasm. Their age-wrinkles had become smile-wrinkles.

We were talking about ‘getting old’ around the dinner table yesterday… about ladies ‘of a certain age’ that we know, who dye their hair. We guessed why they do it… We wondered why looking younger is considered to be good, and looking older considered to be bad.

In ‘Alice in Wonderland’ we have an alternative view of old age; Alice talks to the caterpillar:

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head–
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

It’s a wonderful poem about embracing advancing years with energy and humour, growing old disgracefully, enjoying a new freedom!

This morning I read Romans 4… Paul’s writing about ‘Father Abraham’ – always the example of faith. He left home not knowing where he was going, just trusting his God to lead him and provide for him…

…Abraham’s 100-years-old, his wife Sarah’s 90… God’s promised that they will have a child… it hasn’t happened yet… their faith is tested to the limit…

I hope and pray… that I grow old disgracefully with Father William’s humour… that my faith will be as strong as Father Abraham’s, whatever happens in my autumn years.