Gracing with Age

When January 1 rolled around this year, the day marked the beginning of the first Baby Boomer turning sixty-five. A huge segment of our population has now hit the so-called retirement years. Oh, the irony of the fact that this generation used to describe anyone over thirty as “over the hill” (ageism, anyone?), but now these critics are more than twice that old! The Pew Research Center says that over the next two decades about 10,000 baby boomers per day will become “seniors.” That’s 79 million people, people! And one encouraging trend I read in The Millennials is that today’s youth feel more kindly toward their elders than the elders did at their age. Our previous church, before we shuttered it, had only about thirty-five people in it. And one of the benefits of a community that small was that my daughter had a number of over-fifty folks she considered her buds. In our new church community my husband and I participate in a fellowship that includes lots of young singles and couples. We love that we get to interact with people of all ages as part of our weekly rhythm rather than getting segregated with only the older set. We still have a teen at home, so we often identify more with the folks in their thirties and forties. Are you intentional about interacting with younger people, building into their lives and learning from them? Are you intentional about interacting with older people, drawing on their wisdom and valuing their experience? Some research suggests that whereas internationism has been a driving force in this generation, the next generation will push for more integration (less segregation) of the generations. May it be so.