From his book ‘The Man and the Message,’ Richard L. Evans taught:
If we are blessed with long years of life, this brings us to old age, and with old age there comes concern for growing old gracefully as for growing old usefully—“The Art of Living Long Without Growing Old” 31 as one respected person put it.
All reason and sense and inner awareness tell us that men are immortal. But we know what we have here, and we cling to it as long as we can, which always we should and we must, seeking to make full use of all the life we live.
As to being well and happy in the later years of life: “A sense of purpose and opportunity to contribute to others,” said one physician, “—these are as vital to total health as are adequate nutrition and rest.”32
“The happiest person, said William Lyon Phelps, “is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts . . . as we advance in years we really grow if we live intelligently. . . . To say that youth is happier than maturity is like saying the view from the bottom of the tower is better than the view from the top. As we ascend, our view widens immensely; the horizon is pushed farther away. Finally as we reach the summit it is as if we had the world at our feet.”
Each part of life has its usefulness, its compensations; its challenges, its problems, its beauty, its service, its satisfactions. And as we live in honor, serving, as we can, as fully, and in any way we can, keeping faith and peace within ourselves and with him who made us all, there is an ever adding meaning to these lines from Karl Wilson Baker:
Let me grow lovely growing old—
So many fine things do;
Laces, and ivory, and gold,
And silks need not be new.
And there is healing in old trees,
Old streets a glamour hold;
Why may not I, as we as these,
Grow lovely, growing old? 33
~Richard L. Evans, The Man and the Message (Salt Lake City, Bookcraft, 1973). 123-24
