We Need More Wise in our Old

Ecclesiasticus 25

³ If you have gathered nothing in your youth, how can you discover anything in your old age?

⁴ How fine a thing: sound judgment with grey hairs, and for greybeards to know how to advise!

⁵ How fine a thing:  Wisdom in the aged and considered advice coming from people of distinction!

⁶ The crown of the aged is ripe experience, their glory, the fear of the Lord.

When I decided to write a blog it was with some trepidation.  The world seems filled with blogs and I wasn't sure that they were often all that valuable.  They sometimes devolve into vapidity and error.  So I wanted to use someone else’s voice.  Someone that I knew wouldn't devolve.  Someone that I knew has a voice that was needed today.

 

I picked well, I think, with Jesus

(not THE Jesus), the writer of Ecclesiasticus.  I may not be doing it justice, but we need wisdom.  We need old age in a way we haven’t ever needed it. 

Let me give some examples of where youth is elongating and why.  First, adults are playing too many video games.  Yeah, I said it.  I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy.  But it’s a strangulation of life out of those doing it.  Yes, you can argue that you only do it two hours a night which is less than some people watch Real Housewives of Orange County. You may say that you only watch two hours a week which is less than most people spend commuting to work.  You may say that you got a Wii to play with your kids and grand kids.  But this gaming culture is an infestation and any amount is a symptom of immaturity while a great deal is something more dire to the whole of a life.

Have you seen those tramp stamps?  They’re pretty sexy, huh?  There’s some vaguely tribal design on the small of the back of a model.  There’s some dolphin on an ankle.  There are full sleeves that used to never be seen outside of carnivals but now somebody is sporting one at every fast food place you visit.  Every person thinks these drawings really bring out their personality, or look good, or mean something to them.  I’m not saying that every tattoo is silly but my guess is four out of five are.  It is a misjudgment of future consequences.  These days people between the ages of 18-35 are more likely to have tattoos than not.  And as eventually happens to us all we get old and the tattoos sag and look ridiculous but our old people are seemingly less embarrassed than they've ever been. 

Girls are having children without husbands.  Boys are impregnating women before they’re ready to be fathers.  This is the most detrimental societal epidemic in our country.  Out of wedlock birth perpetuates a cycle of meager school performance, low moral behavior, and high poverty.  Poor DOES NOT create crime but with a few other key ingredients like rap culture and no moral compass, you've got a recipe for disaster.  This is also, in many people’s opinion, a failure of our maturity.  We think we don’t need two parents because some of us didn't have two parents or because we didn't like either of our parents.  We’re skipping that section in our lives when we found out our parents were wise through the accident of living.  Maturity is humility towards the knowledge of the world.  It’s a worldwide Socratic prophecy by the oracle of Delphi.  It is that knowledge of one’s own ignorance is further along the spectrum of enlightenment than assurance that one ‘knows it all.’  Knowledge of ignorance beats ignorance any day.

And why are we dying later but not getting older of character and mind?  I think it’s twofold.  One it’s a cycle of disconnection.  We move to the cities and there is less extended family interaction.  A hundred years ago did you live in the same city as all of your cousins?  Two hundred years ago did you?  We disconnect from out extended families which makes the disconnection from our nuclear families all the more inevitable.  It is our kids needing us to be adults that makes us need to be adults and the less they need that the less we need to grow up.  The less there is an outlet for knowledge of the world in our children, the less we need to doggedly input data into our worldview database.  The less often boys stay with their children, the less often they learn about life and grow up all the more through raising children.  It’s difficult to be a full-grown man without being a father.  Trust me. 

Second reason is that we need less these days.  Life is easier these days with power companies and central air.  There is no fight for survival.  This makes a person mature.  The fight against the elements of the world prepares the heart for almost any simple dealings in the world.  When a person must dig his own latrine he seems to be more even-keeled to the world’s swells.  No, I don’t think we need to go back there to a Laura Ingalls Wilder world where there isn't electricity or showers but we need to teach our children and ourselves to strive.  Video games, premium cable, foodies, and fun runs:  They all blind us to the fact that we’re still locked in a battle to survive.  These lull us to sleep but we have a storm of survival bearing down.  We need leaders who are the oldest most seasoned individuals who AREN'T individuals to tell us stories and help us become great.  We stoop at the edge of world precipice and we need the cooler heads to tell us where the cliff leads.

It used to be our politicians.  We used to elect wisdom, I think.  Wisdom used to find its way to the top pushed by those around it.  Now, it’s simpler to elect people that look certain ways and talk and vote certain ways.  But simple isn't wise.

This time I've got no homework that I think might help you get wise.  Let me remind you that anyone who seeks wisdom finds it.  No this post was a meandering rant against a generation of children with gray hair, Baby-Boomers who never left the ‘baby’ behind.  I used to think I was kind of oddly annoyed by ‘kids these days.’ How much worse that I’m disgusted by old people these days?

God, grant us grandfathers and grandmothers, patriarchs and matriarchs, advisers, and leaders.  Grant our old people ripe experience.  Teach them to fear you, is true glory.