15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.
In our age of always young, these words might seem like a curse rather than a blessing. The idea of being very old, or as the Hebrew says it “grey haired”, is almost repulsive in our culture. With the rejection of the beauty of aging we have become a culture of Botox, tucks and lifts. The airbrush has made it possible to look much younger than we really are. Our visual advertisements are all touched and retouched to produce the ‘ideal’ image that will sell products. No imperfection allowed. Hours sitting in the makeup chair before a shoot with a team of experts deceive the eye into thinking the fountain of youth has been achieved, at least in this actress’ life. And then we look in the mirror the next morning and doubt our own beauty. We pull at the corners of our eyes and gaze in the concave magnifying mirror at the landscape that is our face. We see the variety of blemishes and wonder how they can be removed. Abraham felt it was a blessing to grow old and grey. In fact it was a blessing, and I think still is a blessing. For me, grey hair symbolizes survival. It is an outward sign of the abundance of stories that are part of that individual’s journey. There is a richness in that life which younger people just don’t have. The grey hair piques my curiosity. I want to know the story behind the hair. What twists and turns of life have those eyes seen? What storms has that wrinkled and patchy skin weathered? What stories have those ears heard? We look on the signs of old age with horror. I look on them as a badge of survival. I am a tried and true quantity. I have lived through and overcome. My life has been tried and I have passed the test. My grey hair and bald head set me apart from my younger friends. I know that turning thirty is not big deal. Forty was just another year. Fifty wasn’t even difficult. I am a survivor. Abraham was going to survive for a very long time and that was seen as a blessing for the Lord. We can view it with a similar outlook.
The Arnold Journey 