Old Age: The Harvest of the Years of Youth

A subject so greatly significant as old age is not soon exhausted — and we would add at this hour some further thoughts on this theme: “We grow old naturally,” said one physician, and “the first and the most important ingredient in the prescription for growing old graciously and happily is understanding — understanding of the naturalness of the process of growing old…”¹ In the older years of life we are freed from some of the decisions that earlier were with us, and are not so enslaved with some of life’s earlier urgencies — when we were rushing to get there, to pick up a profession, to make preparation, to choose a partner, to make a home, to rear a family, to assure success. But the driving restlessness eases up, as success, so-called, has either been achieved, or abandoned as not mattering very much. Every period of life has its problems, its advantages, its adjustments, its decisions, its uncertainties, and, old or young, we have to keep flexible in the living of life: not flexible as to principles, as to things of eternal truth, but flexible in our reactions to environment, to people and places, to the going and coming of friends and family, to changing situations and circumstances. And we have to learn that life is sometimes full — and hearts — and homes also; and sometimes rooms are empty — and arms also — except for memories, except for service, except for the rich inner resources of the soul. And part of the reason for pursuing this subject is to let youth know what old age is: that it is the harvest of the years of youth — that every law observed, every temperate habit acquired, every good memory made, every truth discovered, every virtue developed, every commandment kept, every lesson learned, adds enrichment to the harvest of the older years — and to the harvest of eternity, and softens the sense of insecurity, and tempers loss and loneliness. And with friends — and flexibility — and faithfulness and faith, quietly we come to know that “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: …a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; …A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; …A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; …He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.”²