| Spiritual RealAge |
July 2 , 2000
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I want to revisit the text we worked with last week for three
reasons...
First, I think I was a little bit too heady last week.
John does that to me...gets me in my head and I think
intellectual thoughts... but I want to take another stab
at making the point of this text easy to grasp.
Second, the religious right has claimed this text as the
crux of their theology.
I think in doing so it has been twisted and made into things it is
not.
I want to reclaim it for us middle-of-the-road, both-and,
Christians.
Third, when I arrived at Catalina we set out to
develop a gen-x worship service...for a specific age group... namely,
for young adults.
I gotta be honest...some of you all don't fit the category.
I've given up my opinion that contemporary worship is only for
the young...
but I think there is a more better explanation for why our church is
so multi-generational.
So here we go...
Someone has said that there are four stages of life:
Childhood, Adolescence,
Adulthood and then "Gee you look
good!"
But there is good news.
Saw it on the Today show awhile back, and then in writing ...
a study suggests that real age is not the same as chronological age.
Men, if you suck down more than 10 servings of tomato paste per
week, you may be younger than you think you are.
Women, if you have been battered by a divorce, you may be older than
you think you are.
If we brush and floss faithfully, we may be as much as 6.4 years
younger than we think we are!
How can this be?
An age is an age is an age, isn't it?
In the no-nonsense words of Nicodemus,
"How can anyone be born after having grown old?"
(John 3:4).
As much as we may want to turn, twist and torque the hands of
time, we can't do it, can we?
Perhaps we can.
At least according to Michael F. Roizen, M.D., author of RealAge, a
book with an age reduction program that promises to help us live and
feel up to 26 years younger than we are (New York: HarperCollins,
1999).
Dr. Roizen, a preventive gerontologist who appears perennially in
the "1,000 Best Doctors in the United States" listings,
does an excellent job of organizing and explaining essential health
information, from defining health concepts to distilling facts about
diet, supplements and herbs.
"Far from faddish, RealAge clearly presents only advice that's
been proven effective in clinical trials.
This is preventive medicine at its best"
(www.amazon.com)
The premise is really rather simple:
There's a difference between our calendar age, and our biologic age.
Recall the surprise you felt when you learned that your coworker
- whom you assumed was in
his 50s - was really only 43.
Think of your neighbor who looks as if she's in her early 40s, but
who's really 60.
"Some people are young for their age," observes
Dr. Roizen.
"They are physiologically and mentally as active and
vibrant as someone much younger."
The youthful 65-year-old woman may have what Roizen calls a
"RealAge" of 45.
She has learned how to slow the pace of aging by making simple
but critical decisions about her lifestyle and behavior.
By taking care of her body, she slows the pace of biologic aging
and
capitalizes more fully on her potential (xiv-xv).
Roizen's RealAge program -
splashed across a full-page ad in The New York Times, and now in the
form of a book, audio cassette, computer program and Web site -
gives you a measurement system to calculate the biologic age of your
body.
Once you discover your RealAge, you can learn to evaluate health
care decisions as diverse as putting tomato sauce on spaghetti, or
taking a jog, and then make informed decisions about each habit.
- Take vitamins C and E daily
for their antioxidant and
anti-aging power (6 years)
- Eat breakfast every day (1.1 years).
- Get a good night's sleep regularly (3 years).
- Maintain a constant desirable weight (6 years).
- Own a dog, and walk it (1 year)!
- Build social networks (2-30 years).
Dr. Roizen has found that close friends and family members can help
prevent aging from excessive stress.
On the other hand, if you want to age more quickly - and what
fool among us does?
- your best bet is to have unsafe sex,
- work at a job exposing you to pollutants and toxins,
- live beyond your financial means,
- smoke cigarettes,
drink to excess, and
abuse drugs (44-52).
The key to looking and feeling older than your birth certificate
usually comes down to self-abuse!
Unfortunately, not everyone gets it.
In
John 3,
Jesus gives a night visitor named Nicodemus some hints
about Spiritual RealAge when he insists,
"You must be born from above"
(v. 7).
Actually, what he really says is,
"You must be born anothen" -
a Greek word that sounds like a fancy dietary supplement.
Anothen is a word with a dual meaning - it means
both "again", and "from above"
To be born anothen speaks both of
a TIME of birth - "again" --
and the PLACE from which the new birth is generated - "from
above."
But Nicodemus' language and imagination do not stretch far enough
to grasp Jesus' offer.
Sometimes when we speak of being "born again" we
make the same mistake that Nicodemus did:
We understand Jesus' words on only one level.
We focus on being "born again" to the exclusion of
being "born from above," and flatten the expression
to only one meaning...roughly equivalent to an individual's private
moment of conversion.
We've got the TIME covered... but nothing is done around PLACE.
The "born again" metaphor speaks to the new
context in which we function with others relationally.
As a consequence, we speak, act and think differently toward those
who are around us.
Being born "from above" identifies the source of
regeneration.
The recognition that rebirth is a divine action in us
removes from us any sense of Spiritual RealAge as something we can do
ourselves apart from God's work in us.
So what does a person who is spiritually young look like?
He's open to surprises from God - unlike Nicodemus, who was full of
preconceptions about what God could and couldn't accomplish.
She's willing to let the Spirit of God blow where it chooses, not
knowing where it comes from or where it goes, racing far beyond
human knowledge and control.
Or, he does some of the 175 things that Esquire says a man
should do before he dies.
Not necessarily number 6, "Jump out of a
Cessna,"
but certainly number 7, "Talk to God," and number
170, "Entertain the possibility that there is, indeed,
a heaven and a hell, and treat people accordingly"
("The Life List: 175 Things a Man Should Do Before He
Dies," Esquire, December 1999).
It could be that a person with a young and vibrant Spiritual
RealAge looks like - you!
Like you when you attend worship and listen for God's Word ...
when you pray every day ...
when you build service to others into your regular routine ...
when you participate in the activities and outreach of a caring
Christian community.
Scientific, secular studies are unanimous:
people of faith - those born again and born from above - always
appear to be more alive, engaged and younger than their birth
certificate says they are.
And we live longer.
So why do I tell you about this... about Dr. Roizan...
"After reading this fabulous book I feel like I'm in my 20s
again.
Sure, Dr. Roizen uses scientific research, and deals with
practical issues of our daily diet, lifestyle and bad habits such
as drinking and smoking that will reduce our life
expectancy, but overall he encourages us in a simple way to
rearrange our priorities - and that makes all the
difference."
-A reader from San Diego, Calif.,
October 6, 1999, www.amazon.com.
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