It looks like I’m going to make it to my seventieth birthday—if I can dodge bullets, asteroids, car accidents, heart attacks, explosions, and falling off the Sears Building—for just six more days.  Just to be sure I make it, I’m also going to ignore politics, religion, and the 2024 version of the Chicago Cubs until my birthday.

I’m not surprised to be turning 70.  Being a Bible scholar, I’ve always thought I’d make it:  “As for the days of our lives, they  contain 70 years,” Psalm 90.  Of course it isn’t a guarantee, as Isaiah refers to those who do not live out their allotted days.  On the other hand, I might make it to 80, according to a Psalm:  “As to the years of our lives…if due to strength, we live eighty years.” That’s why I keep paying Cory to be my gym coach.  If he can get me to 80, maybe I’ll make him an honorary grandson and put him in my will.  Although—after paying for another decade of house repairs and medical bills—it’s likely my will won’t be worth much.

The Bible even opens the door to me living longer than 80.  Isaiah 65 suggests that if the human race can get itself out of this hole we’ve dug and fallen into, we will all live to be 100. And there’s that verse in Genesis (6:3) where God decides to cap human lifespan at 120.  

When I was a teenager, I was cocky enough to believe that I had 50 years ahead of me before I got deathly old.  The thought of me being 70 back then was unfathomable.  But it’s time to start thinking this through, as next month’s calendar is starting to fill up. 

Above all else, I have decided to stay positive about being a septuagenarian.  Turning to the internet search engines, I typed in “Good things about being seventy.”  To summarize, the internet made me feel worse.  The top three articles on the topic were 1) tips for surviving your seventies, 2) what physical changes to expect over the next ten years, and 3) gifts for women over 70.

I learned four things from these posts.  The first article suggests that I take more vitamins, join a walking group, and watch out for bad teeth. The second article informs me that by the time I roll over another decade, my brain will have shrunk, my skin will itch more, constipation will be a daily friend, and I can expect sexual “challenges.”  The third article only included gifts for women, but I got the idea.  For the next ten birthdays and Christmases, my family just needs to figure out the masculine equivalent of jewelry, solar lanterns, foot massage machines, decorative garden turtles, and neck fans.  The fourth thing I learned was to avoid the internet if I want to stay positive about life.

While the internet is filled with advice on how to take care of myself during my seventies, I’m more interested in learning how I can take care of the world around me during the next ten years.  How can I make a difference?  How can I aid my church?  How can I help others experience abundant life?  How can I influence my physical and social environment in healthy ways? How can I participate in reforming a dystopian political system that is spilling over into everything else in life?

For starters, I have decided not to run for president during my seventies.  Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected when they were just a tad older than me.  I’ve seen enough.  Seventy (and beyond) goes better for everyone if we elders lubricate our endeavors with self-modesty. 

When I stop and think about (Biden and Trump and a few others notwithstanding) I’ve been learning positive life lessons from seventy-year-olds for almost 70 years now.  Granted, when I was a kid, I mistakenly thought my school teachers were all in their seventies.  So, I didn’t really get a good grip on this demographic until I was older. But having been a pastor of thousands of folks in their seventies, I’m not clueless going into next week.  Plus, friends and family have long been mentoring me.

In summary, here is what seventy-year-olds are best at:  turning the lights on for everyone else.  

After all, life goes into dark places. Churches face gloomy times.  Our nation goes through shadowy eras.  Cultures and nations and races wallow unenlightened by one another.  Spirits become sullen.  Nationalism and tribalism plunge us all into joyless night.  

I’m a person who refuses to lose heart or give in to negativity.  But even I am noticing ominous storm clouds these days that are making it hard for us to see reality—or each other.  

A pastor going into his new church this week was overheard talking about a family in the congregation he hadn’t even met yet.  He had been stalking their Facebook page and noticed that they weren’t Trump supporters, and he was plotting aloud what he was going to do about them.  On the other side of the chasm, I sat appalled in a conference meeting while one of our liberal leaders spoke openly about closing up shop in our rural areas because the few people living there aren’t worth our time or money anymore.    

When I write that this isn’t the church I grew up in, I’m not going to be just some nostalgic seventy-year-old pining for the good ole days.  I’m going to be a feisty seventy-year-old who aims to trespass into these smug settings and flip on a few lights. And when I describe the broken political system we have, I’m not going to be some geezer on a park bench wasting my complaints in thin air.  I’m going to be that old guy who is free to poke elephants and donkeys because I don’t worry anymore about what they’ll do back.  The freedom of aging lets us say and do things we were too self-constrained to do before.  

True, there are a few things I can’t do anymore.  And before the next decade is out, the list of what I can’t do anymore will grow longer.  But I can still speak and I can still write, better than at any time in my life.  I can use the history I’ve learned and experienced—a history that only people my age have accumulated.  Plus, there is a special wisdom that comes from decades of living among wise (and foolish) people—as well as learning from my own episodes of foolishness.  

Once I turn seventy, I’ll be too old and retired to make anyone feel threatened anymore. Their mistake.  The older we get, the more invisible we become to the rest of the world—unless we insist on clinging on to power and position. I used to worry what people would think if I spilled something on my shirt, or if my zipper was down.  But now—no worries.  Once someone notices my age—they stop paying any attention to me.  

In addition to invisibility, there is also power that comes from leaning into graciousness, patience, and kindness. Nobody does that stuff better than old people.  

And so it is that I want to spend my seventies turning on the lights in a world that’s getting too dark for me.  I’ve seen plenty of seventy-year-olds do it all my life—with their stories, honesty, transparency, lack of embarrassment, curiosity, and humor. 

Someone needs to shine more light these days. The lights of empathy, experience, exploration, ecumenicism, enchantment, emancipation, encouragement, endurance, enlightenment, entertainment, equanimity, and extravagance.  Those are just some “e” words.  

We can go through the whole alphabet. We can go everywhere—ruining this darkness descended upon us. We are the acolytes–the ones subverting every shadowed station with the candles, campfires, lanterns, flares, and torches of our minds and hearts.

Move over septuagenarians, make room for one more this week.