“Gen Z is aging like milk.” That’s the word on social media. Some in the generation whose elders have just turned 27 (and whose youngest members are 12) are concerned about the image looking back at them in the mirror. Or, more accurately, from their TikTok and Instagram accounts.
After a viewer of one of her videos reckoned that 23-year-old Taylor Donoghue was in her thirties, she began considering Botox. Twenty-six-year-old Jason Howlett speculates that the stressors of this era have aged his generation prematurely.
And this era has big stressors: climate change, school shootings, the resulting routine of lockdown drills, a pandemic, burdensome student debt, endless wars, declining economic prospects, a shifting geopolitical landscape.
There are some Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) who snicker at the Gen Z angst about their age. It’s what they get for poking fun at older generations (especially the Millennials themselves). Maybe you’re rolling your eyes a bit, too, especially if you’re a Boomer or belong to Gen X.
As for me, I’m sort of sympathetic. I mean, there are some things that you learn only by going through them. Aging is near the top of that list. Oh sure, you might watch your parents or your grandparents slow down, fill out around their waist and their hips, and lose all sense of fashion.
But few of us apply the lessons of aging to ourselves until we have had to let go of our self-image as a young track star and started to accommodate ourselves to a 66-year-old body that groans doing pushups.
In fact, our culture aids and abets our tendency to deny the effects of chronology. Just look at all those anti-aging products and de-aging AI filters. And you can count the number of celebrities and influencers who refuse to have work done on one hand.
It seems as if, culturally speaking, we think that age—at least age beyond 30—is something to be healed from. And it occurs to me that such a perspective distorts our understanding of both life and healing. This is especially crucial for those of us who follow Jesus. After all, he came to give us abundant life, and he taught us about abundant life in part by healing people.
Look, for instance, at Mark’s account of a day in Jesus’ ministry in Capernaum. (Mark 1:29-39) Having just wowed the crowd at the local synagogue, Jesus makes his way with Andrew and Simon Peter to Peter’s house.
As it turns out, Peter’s mother-in-law is bedridden with fever. No sooner does Jesus heal her than the whole town swarms the place looking for cures for every kind of ailment and for exorcisms of a variety of chatty demons. Many were healed and made demon-free by bedtime.
Healing stories and exorcisms make up one third of Mark’s Gospel. That’s more than the space that Mark allots to the Passion Narrative. And Mark had a reason for shaping his version of Jesus’ life in this way. Healing and exorcism illustrate the saving work of Jesus.
At no point did Jesus heal anyone of old age. He is not a biblical version of the Fountain of Youth. He restores us to wholeness of body and spirit. And the result is not liberation from wrinkles and thinning hair. It’s the freedom to love.
Our life is about love. When we love, we are living abundantly. And to love is to seek the good for others. Consider Peter’s mother-in-law. As I mentioned, Jesus banished her fever. Immediately, she got up from the bed and began serving others.
Aging is a part of life. We love—and with God’s help we learn to love better—over time. With loving—and with time—we become more genuinely who God created us to be. And truthfully, love brings with it a bit of wear and tear.
We seem to think that aging makes us less. And indeed we can age poorly. Chronology can diminish us if we lead a self-absorbed life, focusing only on our own appearance or our achievements or our social status.
But we can age well. We do that when we love. That’s when aging is the process of becoming Real.
You see when we love that’s God’s love pouring through us. The more we give love away, the more we experience how loved we are. Being loved in this way is how we become Real.
Margery Williams Bianco says it best in her classic The Velveteen Rabbit:
You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
So, dear ones, whether you are 26 or 96 or 66, I’m suggesting to you that aging is not something to dread or to resist, certainly nothing from which you need to be healed. It’s how you become you. The Real. The Beloved. The Beautiful.
Lent begins in a week and a half with Ash Wednesday. At the The Woodlands Podcast I’ll be offering a series entitled “Wisdom of the Psalms.” If you’re not already a paid subscriber, check it out with the 7-day free trial. Subscription not in your budget? Email me and I’ll comp you some free episodes. As always, proceeds from paid subscriptions are used for alms.
If you’re looking for a study for Lent (or just need an injection of hope), check out my book Looking for God in Messy Places: A Book about Hope. You can grab a copy by clicking here.
My book A Resurrection Shaped Life is also well-suited for Lenten Study, for book groups, or for personal reflection. Learn more by clicking here.
I always hoped I would age well but with Parkinson's it is a right struggle and I have times when I wonder who the hell I am and why is my body like this
The process of becoming Real... thank you. Means a lot to remember this beautiful story in a world that forgets the shabby side of Love, as we wear and tear in tenderness, waiting for the kingdom to come...