A strong sense of worth will help us age well
Everyone gets older - but some people become community elders.
Elders are people who have guided, nurtured, and anchored their groups over time. They are traditionally considered to have essential wisdom and knowledge for the group. Elders sustain the group through the respect and trust they gain and the practical value of their experience in life. (got that from a Google search)
As we age, we have knowledge that can continue to grow. Elders tend to be lifelong learners, listeners, and people invested in their community good. Rather than merely securing a legacy based on their past accomplishments, elders bloom forward into their autumn years.
Doing eldership well involves a balance of listening, speaking through wordless action, and, yes, speaking when people are ready to receive.
The soil types
The parable of the sower can help us see how the reception of our offering to the world depends on conditions we can’t control. In that parable, Jesus talks about various soils with differing receptivity levels. The sowing of the seed is our role. We take the shape of the seed sower, but whether the soil receives what we offer depends entirely on the soil. From the sower's side, we are at the mercy of where others are in the moment. Our ranting or observing with ungracious critique is entirely ineffective. Shame is demotivating. While the soil can improve receptivity, our approach can likely help change its state.
Worth in age
If, into our older years, we’re still competing for our place, arguing for some observed significance or asserting our opinions to shame others into acknowledgment, we will not have the influence of an elder. It nearly ensures us that the value of our experience will be unnoticed or perhaps even opposed. Our opinion on the issues we’re using our experience to engage with isn’t even what we’re being rejected for; it’s our demeanor. If we carry a sense of competitiveness and argumentation in the discourse, our eldership will almost certainly be denied. We’ll merely be getting old and irrelevant.
Richar Rohr and others write about navigating the second half of life well. Allowing our significance to rise from an inner peace rather than a domination of our opinions. Rohr writes:
In the second half of life, we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us. We no longer need to change or adjust other people to be happy ourselves. Ironically we are, more than ever before, in a position to change people-but we do not need to, and that makes all the difference.
We have moved from doing to being to an utterly new kind of doing that flows almost organically, quietly, and by osmosis. Our actions are less compulsive. We do what we are called to do, and then try to let go of the consequences. We usually cannot do that very well when we are young.
Now we aid and influence people simply by being who we are. Human integrity probably influences and moves people from potency to action more than anything else. An elder's deep and studied passion carries so much more power than superficial and loudly stated principles. Our peace is needed more than our anger.
Fully understanding our worth can relax our unhealthy assertiveness in our later years. We no longer need to convince others we know things or are correct. But if we feel we lack worth and fight to prove otherwise, our actions may diminish access to what we have to give. People will sense our desperation to prove ourselves.
We CAN be bearers of peace and have a comeliness in engaging the world, though. Jesus was attractive in his interpersonal skills. How else could he attract crowds to the desert for sermons? These days, it's hard to get people to air-conditioned, comfortable sanctuaries that cater to all their preferences. What may call people to endure some discomfort may be an abiding sense of peace within us.
No one ever came to Christ because they lost an argument. No one. But many (maybe most) have come because they sensed something different in His followers and those who have lived a life for him.
Be well, friend.