Times change but the heart does not

Happy Independence Day!  If all goes well, Lesa and I are on a plane to Ethiopia today.  So, I have a special guest post from Bohemian Bowmans.  I think you will enjoy her style!  She is working on an e-book as well called "Parenting Wild Things!"

I really like old people. At least, I’m starting to. I know that sounds terrible and shallow and immature. But what can I say – I’ve been terrible and shallow and immature. AKA – young.

I’ve never given elderly people much thought before recent years. They smelled funny, they used funny words, they dressed funny. They were one big bunch of irrelevant oddness. That didn’t pertain to my life.

Then I started getting older. Granted, I’m not a bona fide old person yet. Unless perhaps you ask a 15 year old, then I’m a hair past ancient (or whatever new fangled word that young people are using to mean “old” these days). However, I have finally started to notice the tell tale signs of aging in the mirror. And it kind of scares the crap out of me.

Suddenly I realize we’re not so different, old people and I. Aging every day, growing further and further from understanding all the whippersnappers. Parts of our bodies starting to look funny and smell funny. I’m positive that even my words sound funny to the average teenager. And that is not the bomb, yo.

It makes me want to sit down with the gray haired and listen to their stories. Stories that I’ve more or less ignored before now, only placating them with pretend attention. I’m beginning to understand that technology and cultural advances don’t really change the human story that much. Boy has good and bad memories in childhood. Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Boy and girl get married, and wear these clothes, and have babies, and take this job, or buy this house, or get this haircut, or eat this food, or move to this place, or get divorced, or reconcile, or bury a parent, or…

It doesn’t matter what kind of car it is, or what the haircut looks like, or that the job and the market it’s a part of didn’t exist 30 years ago, or won’t exist 30 years from now. Those are minor details. The differences don’t matter nearly as much as the similarities. The only thing that really matters, the things that we really remember – are the relationships.

The stories of the ups and downs of those relationships are always relevant. They stand the test of time and technology. They are great big billboards and warning signs that God gives us to help navigate this ever advancing, ever staying the same world. I wish now that I had paid more attention to the stories of the elderly people that have passed in and out of my life.

And I hope one day some young thing will understand the importance of sitting on my porch, drinking lemonade, and listening to me reminisce about how fly things were back when we used to get jiggy with it.

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Here's another cool story about loving mercy.

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