Sinking into 60....

Mark and Mary Allen's new home

We celebrated my new year in a new place. Oh, if the new year (my 60th) can be half as wonderful as the new place (Mark and Mary Allen's newly completed home at Lake Junaluska!)

Tyler (2 1/2) was the first early bird to remember that it was my birthday. "Happy Birthday, Grammy!" he said, very proud of himself. Not to be outdone, Connor shouted from the balconey, "You sure are a big number now, Grammy!"

Tyler, who was sitting on my lap, saw my reaction and comfortingly said, "You not a big number, Grammy." (Such a sweet boy!) I said, "Tyler, what is a big number?" Throwing his hands wide out from side to side, he said, "A hundred!!"

Well, I assured him, I am certainly not 100!

(100 is a big number for Connor, too. That's when we have agreed that he is going to be able to have a gun, smoke cigarettes and ride on motorcycles. Brilliant compromise.)

Sixty years is a long time to have lived and I have lived in the most remarkable of times. There are some people (actually, in the church there are MANY people) who think that the world of my childhood (the 1950's) was better than the world we are living in. I am not one of them. Although we are nowhere close to perfect, I thank God for the many ways that we have made significant progress. It has been thrilling to witness the ways that we have stepped forward in race relations. We haven't arrived yet at living up to our ideals of liberty and justice for all. But racism has been exposed for the evil that it is and we are closer to living our ideals than ever in our nation's history. I'm quite clear that the women's movement doesn't draw rave reviews from people where tradition is of utmost importance. Say what you will, I am very, very grateful that my daughters grew up in a different world than the gender restrictive world that I was raised in. The fact that I am alive to celebrate my 60th birthday is a credit to the advances of medical science -- exquisite delivery systems of God's healing that were not available to my grandparents.

Yes, I know there is a lot of moral degeneration and the transitions have left a lot of relational and emotional casualties. But there were emotional and relational casualties before the tumult of change. Not only were people victimized by limitations, humiliations, violations of dignity and, especially in the case of sexual abuse of children, violence -- but there was the double layer of demanded secrecy. No, I don't think family life was necessarily better. I'm thankful for the wonderful family I had. But my father was a preacher. People who worked with people knew there was a lot of pain in family life. People just didn't talk about it as much or have options for change. The staggering poverty rates of the 1950's tell me that those good old days that people yearn for weren't, in reality, all that good across the board. And, although many people bewail the decline of the institutional church, the worship and Bible study and prayer and mission involvement and discipleship I see in churches today is more vital today than any other time of my life. And, the even better news is that, in order for churches to survive without the props of the culture, we will have to continue to do our best. I've seen too much slack and slide to be sad about that challenge!

Given the staggering pace of change, what the world will be like when (if) I really get to my "big number" of 100 is beyond comprehension. But this I know: God will not be outpaced by the changes of life -- whether in birthdays or technology. Life anchored in him is a blessing -- whether than is my "small number" grandsons or their "big number Grammy". I welcome 60 and the years ahead as a chance to keep making the world a better place -- a world/church where faith in God shows up in grace that abounds, love that flourishes, truth that is honored and where justice, kindness and mercy is the common goal for all. We are a long way from that. But we have come a long way, too. And now, I have this gift of a new year to do all I can to live the high calling of Christ.