The morning began uneventfully enough. When I peered out the window, an overcast sky greeted me (I greeted it back with a prayer). Because I was attending a conference, I skipped my usual twenty-minute walk back and forth across the garden, and the weights.
In the bathroom, I caught sight of the words across the label of a bottle — “age-defying shampoo.” I was intrigued. How could shampoo be age defying? If I’m not wrong, shampoos have to do with hair. Well, perhaps this brand was meant to keep the hair young and shiny, to prevent it from turning gray and, God forbid, from falling off — because in my book retreat before the march of time is certainly not defiance.
Between us, what the words suggested was too strong a temptation for me to resist. Besides, my hair had shown signs of graying. I used the shampoo.
On the way to the conference, I reflected on the phrase again — “age defying.” Something heedless of and untouchable by time.
I had better luck with the sun this morning. It came out of the eaves of a neighbor’s house that lay directly east of us, and in the light was the promise of a dazzling day. This time I decided to break a sweat.
Again while walking briskly, I mused on the phrase,“ age defying,” and was so absorbed by it that when I went up the steps towards the garden, I misjudged a stride and fell. I threw my hands forward to stop the fall. Nonetheless, my right knee scraped the edge of a high level step. This put me out of action, forcing me to rest for a while. But just for a brief while, because in time I was on my feet again.
The tumble made me think of how time brings about falling — of leaves, ripe fruit, old trees, of everything that stands or hangs — how there is decline whether or not preceded by ascent, and how in point of fact the collapse can come about as a great disturbance, a cosmic Sturm und Drang. Such as what Luke tells us, the events that Jesus predicted:
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
Scary as it is, is there a force or person, something, that can defy these upheavals that will come at the end of time? Indeed, there is — the words of Jesus. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
When I got up again after my fall, I contemplated the effulgent sun and told myself, “Isn’t that age defying?” Yesterday’s sky had declined into gray, but now every pore of the atmosphere exuded radiance, lifting the hearts of those who like me had raised the eyes to the heavens. Hearts that, if I may add, Jesus described as drowsy from excessive indulgence and the anxieties of daily life.
If truth be told, I was not gravity defying enough when I fell. But I might have been age defying when I picked myself up to resume walking after a brief assessment of the damage. I ignored my age — not yet a factor there, not much. I defied time. I might as well have seen the signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and heard the roaring of the sea and the waves. I hope I rehearsed that which Jesus directed — “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” Add to this a prayer that one day I shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
And so here is my list of words that I find age defying: constant, dependable, devoted, enduring, firm, honest, loving, obedient, resolute, sincere, staunch, steadfast, true, trustworthy, unwavering, upright, faithful.
I will use them.
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