When I get older losing more hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?
That’s the first song that Paul McCarthy wrote. He was only 15, but it didn’t get recorded until the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 1967.
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four
That song hits home because I turn 64 on Monday. Wow. That’s not old. Old is 15 years more than your current age. Yet we have all this hub-bub about aging. Musician David Bowie said, “Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”
But what makes us into the person we should have been? Now that’s the difficult part, because after a certain age (say around 30) success has nothing to teach us. Oh it’s cute and nice. But our real growth happens ONLY with loss and pain.
Life can be tricky, sometimes a fright
(When) we’re not in control
We can yell and scream and do a pity show
Blame all we want. No one will know.
You see, as we age there may be some change. . . less mobility, less beauty, less strength, less mental capacity. But with aging come wisdom. And wisdom doesn’t usually happen without some unexpected weaknesses, failure, or humiliation. For there will also be will be at least one situation in our lives that we cannot fix, control, explain, change, or even understand. Sometimes it involves work (a job loss, a humiliation), or a relationship issue (our heart gets broken by someone we loved), or there is an illness, a disease, a death, or a reputation has to be lost, a house has to be flooded, a COVID threat to deal with.
Facing our problems, losses or needs
Things we can’t ignore
Will you still feed me, will you still . . . need me
When I'm sixty-four
In Rabbi Harold Kushner’s classic book, WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE (Notice the title says WHEN bad things happen, not if bad things happen. For everyone on of us will suffer, will have a bad thing happen to us.) Anyway in his book he writes: “God does not cause our misfortunes.”
God is not punishing us, when bad things happen. God doesn’t work like that, if God did we’d all be dead right now, because we are always doing something wrong. Bad things happen because bad things happen. Kushner writes, “Some are caused by bad luck, some are caused by bad people, and some are simply an inevitable consequence of our being human and being mortal, living in a world of inflexible natural laws.”
But bad things will happen. That’s what Jesus was trying to get through to the disciples in the gospel when he says them to take up the cross. And that he will suffer greatly and be killed. Peter freaks out with, “God forbid. Nothing bad should happen to you.” It should all be rainbows, bunnies, and unicorns.
And Jesus says, you are like a devil, thinking only as humans do . . .”Woe is me” and “Why is this bad thing happening to me?” Start thinking like God . . . bigger picture stuff. It is precisely through your pain, your loss, your humiliation that you grow. Psychiatrist and author Scott Peck (most known for his famous book, The Road Less Traveled) writes, “Problems are the cutting edge between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom.”
It’s like St. Paul wrote to the Christian in Rome in the second reading, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Again, there will always be something that you cannot fix, control, explain, change, or even understand. But you can control how you react to it!
Again from Kushner, “We may not ever understand why we suffer or be able to control the forces that cause our suffering, but we can have a lot to say about what suffering does to us, and what sort of people we become because of it. Pain makes some people bitter and envious. It makes others sensitive and compassionate. It is the result, not the cause, of pain that makes some experiences of pain meaningful . . . and others empty and destructive.”
The question is not asking why something happened, but asking “How will I now respond?” “What do I intend to do now that it has happened?” Because you can stay bitter, and resentful and grumpy . . . or go to Plan B and become better. That is, create a new tomorrow, a new plan. Be transformed.
And that’s what the Eucharist is all about . . . it is the food of transformation that says, “no matter how dark it feels or how heavy the burden . . . eat HOPE.” Just as Jesus was transformed through his pain into glory, from his cross into resurrection. So it shall be with you. Trust, you don’t face this alone. Aging is inevitable. Pain is inevitable. But it’s like God singing to you:
I could be handy, mending a feud
When your wits have gone
You can yell at me by the fireside
I won’t leave, (I’ll) stay by your side
(I’ll) be in the good times, (I’ll) be in the weeds
Could you ask for more?
Will you still need me? Will you still feed (on) me . . .
When you’re sixty-four? . . . or 84, or 104.