One of my favorite films, the 1950 classic All About Eve, follows the story of middle-aged actress Margo Channing as a younger actress attempts to steal her roles, her place in society, and even her boyfriend. Margo wants to find a way to happiness despite her roles and her skin drying up. When a friend has the temerity to claim she’s ageless, Margo replies, “I’m not 20-ish. I’m not 30-ish. Three months ago, I was 40 years old. Forty. 4-0.”
Like Margo, I’m about to be 40: 4-0. This is my year of memento mori. As a woman, I’ve always feared society’s judgment of my looks. I now wonder if people will care about my writing if I don’t use Botox, if I gain 20 pounds, or if I let my hair go gray. And though I place my hope in Christ’s promise of resurrection, I’m not too jazzed about the prospect of dying.
The release of Jen Wilkin’s new book, Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World, couldn’t be timelier. Much as I’m struggling to come to terms with the big 4-0, Jen has recently been forced to accept that she’s eligible for the senior discount at McDonald’s. Why do we all fear the coming of the AARP card? Wilkin argues it’s largely because our society has told us a false story about aging that conflicts with Scripture’s true story.
While Christians strive to “value all of human life, from beginning to end,” the world we live in values the first half of life “but does not value its second half of bodily decline” (7–8). Dust to Dust is therefore not a book about death but a book “about this life and the unexpected path to living it to the full.” Wilkin elaborates, “We find that path through a right assessment of the aging process, one that is distinctly Christian in its perspective” (3–4).
Chiasmic Thinking
Wilkin says a human life can be thought of as a chiasm, with progressive development from our first breath until middle age, then gradual decline until our final breath. Before the fall, human beings aged without bodily decline, but now we must suffer the loss of function and independence. However, we can grow strong in wisdom even as our bodies weaken.
“As aging sets in, we tend to think only of what we will lose in our appearance,” Wilkin says. “We forget to ask what might be gained in our souls” (149). Understanding life’s stages “helps us recognize and inhabit the season we are in and discern how to live that particular season out of God’s true story.” She adds, “It can also help us prioritize how to use the time we are given” (35).
Youth and age both provide unique gifts, but we tend to welcome the former and bemoan the latter. However, older age brings blessings: “We learn to number our days. We gain wisdom about what, or rather who, matters most” (103).
A call to age gracefully is therefore a call to undergo suffering while maintaining hope in God’s promises. “Though we rightly wish to avoid them, suffering and loss are skilled teachers,” Wilkin writes. “What do they teach? Humility. Patience. Perspective. Holiness. The fruit of the Spirit” (99).
Youth and age both provide unique gifts, but we tend to welcome the former and bemoan the latter.
An awareness of life’s stages helps us “live as though each day, each season, each moment on the curve matters for eternity.” She continues, “It is trusting God to help us unlearn the original sin of self-reliance as the aging process gradually, even faithfully, reteaches us dependence” (14). It also helps us realize that, for most people, there will be stages of being cared for and stages of caring for others.
Regarding eldercare, Wilkin notes, “There is a difference between a responsibility that is weighty and one that is burdensome.” Speaking of eldercare as a burden wrongly “connotes an injustice or an unforeseen calamity” (121). Wilkin offers a different perspective: “Godly wisdom views the elderly as people to love, not problems to solve. Worldly wisdom increasingly agrees that the elderly are problems before they are people” (122). The portions of the book on caring for the elderly are particularly relevant given the aging populations in most countries.
Do What You Wish
Our approach to aging draws on our desire to honor God as Creator and also on the command to love our neighbor. We must keep in mind that “living in a true story is good for both us and those around us.” Wilkin continues, “If I seek to understand how God thinks about aging, it will benefit me in my own aging process, but it will also benefit the aged who need my care and, eventually, those who will need to care for me” (25–26).
Our actions as we age testify to our beliefs: whether we truly think older people are equally valuable and have much to offer the world.
Our actions as we age testify to our beliefs: whether we truly think older people are equally valuable and have much to offer the world.
Wilkin tells us, “Do what you wish.” Not by catering to our own preferences but by treating our neighbors the way we would want to be treated at each life stage. “Do what you wish would be done for you. This is the path to a life of consequence” (55).
Drawing on her experience caring for aging parents, Wilkin observes that while their personal agency may decline, we should seek to honor their wishes whenever possible.
When we do not take into consideration what they want, we confirm their fear that they are problems to solve. Do our speech and actions convey respect or thinly veiled frustration? Do we recognize our aging parents as fully human, fully adult, worthy of honor? (129)
The hope for those united to Christ is that while we “have a divine appointment with death,” that day “is both an ending and a beginning.” Wilkin elaborates, “We have an appointment with the end of our sin and the beginning of our sinlessness” (162–63). Those are good words to live by in a youth-obsessed age.
Dust to Dust encourages readers in every life stage to inhabit the true story of aging in light of God’s eternal purposes.
