Preparing for our own Bell Lap
Ihad the privilege of hosting one of my favorite authors last weekend. Gordon MacDonald has been quoted frequently in this column. Gordon is 79-years-old and possesses more enthusiasm for life than many teenagers. He also took me to school as I attempted to absorb his accumulated wisdom.
A track star in his youth, Gordon draws numerous analogies about living life well from his experiences as a runner. One analogy was brand new to me.
At track meets, during races of longer distances it is common for a bell to ring as the leader enters the final lap. It is a signal to all runners that the race is in its final stage and that if they have any plan to make a move, they better make it now because time is running out.
Gordon’s application was like a punch to the gut. He described statistics indicating that through the advances of modern medicine and technology people are living up to 30 years longer than their life expectancy would have been in previous eras of history.
Not only are we living longer, but we are living with more health, wealth and opportunity than ever before. However, that’s where the good news stops. Gordon contends that not only do most of us not know what to do with those 30 extra years but neither does society or even the church know what to do with us.
An ever increasing percentage of the population is entering the “Bell Lap” of life without a plan to run it well. Worse, rather than running the Bell Lap with any sense of urgency, many view it as a season in which to coast. They assume the race is for all intents and purposes already over so they can just retire and coast through the final stretch.
I have previously never met anyone with a philosophy and practical plan for running the “Bell Lap.” Sitting around the patio table of my deck, Gordon asked me if I had ever considered that even the sins of a 70-year-old differ significantly from the sins of a 20-year-old.
He asserted that at 20, most sins are fueled by testosterone while at 70 they have a lot to do with managing loss and responding to a sense of being marginalized and forgotten.
He raised the question of how one manages their marriage if each spouse ages at a significantly different rate. I had to confess that although 80 still seems a long way off for me, I’ve never contemplated questions like those.
The weekend from start to finish could be characterized by one word: intentionality. Wise people do not “go with the flow” because the flow is inevitably downward. Wise people live intentionally.
This is not a column on aging as much as it is a column on living well. The ancient book of Proverbs begins with these words: “These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David’s son, Israel’s king — written down so we’ll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it’s going.”
This past weekend was spent with the wise sayings of an octogenarian who has taken the time to think and write about life. As I approach the Bell Lap, I am grateful for his coaching.
Tim Schroeder is pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Kelowna. This column appears Saturdays.