Daily Verse | Revelation 9:6
During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
Wednesday’s Reading: Revelation 10-13
Wednesday and we’re hitting the top of the week with a long drop to the last day of the year. Up ahead is 2023!
Speaking of new years … I’ve felt myself moving into a new phase of life over the last year or two as it’s become clear that I’m now part of that older crowd that I’ve never associated myself with. It’s not that I’ve dis-associated myself from it; it’s that I’ve never thought of myself as a part of it and now I’m being forced to accept that I am, indeed, a part of it.
A couple of examples in play here. First, one of the great NFL fullbacks and Steelers icon during my growing up years, Franco Harris, died a few days ago at the age of 72. As kids we idolized the man (along with O.J. Simpson, the Buffalo Bills running back turned detective to investigate who killed his wife.)
Then there was Kirstie Alley, the Cheers actress who died a couple of weeks ago at age 71, preceded a few days earlier by Christine McVie at age 79, of Fleetwood Mac, one of the biggest musical acts of my generation (their Rumors album stayed on top of the charts for 31 straight weeks in 1977).
And then yesterday, my wife learned that a cousin with whom she was close died a couple of days ago. She was only a year younger than I am, and I’m approaching my 6th decade.
It was weird, and even a little sad, to hear that Harris died even though he’d been out-of-sight out-of-mind for decades. It hit a little closer to home with my wife’s cousin whom we’d seen earlier this year with no indication that something awful was coming.
No one plans to get old. No one plans to die. We all know that we will; the evidence is all round us. But we live life a day at a time and age and death creep up on us so slowly that they take us by surprise when we see it.
Our lives are lived in the moment, but their totality is made up of memories and experiences that involve others we knew personally or knew through a medium like the written word, or song or film. I never met Billy Graham personally, (I did sit on the platform once during a stadium event he held), but when he died I felt like a little bit of my known, stable world died, too.
My world is different from my kids’ world. The athletes, movie stars, authors, politicians and other celebrities that made up my world as a kid are not the same as those making up my kids’ world. There’s some overlap, sure, especially with today’s politicians, but the “stuff” that makes up their world is going to be different than mine.
As I get older it only makes sense that my generation’s touchstones are “up next.” They’re only a decade or so ahead of me. So, when a Tom Petty or Angela Lansbury or Billy Graham or Franco Harris dies, I feel like they take a little piece of my life with them and I’m not as “grounded” as I was.
At times like this, it’s good to remember: “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17). That’s my ultimate grounding and I hope it’s yours too.