Growing Old Gracefully, David J. Claassen. Elk Lake Publishing (ISBN: 9798891341890), 2024.

Summary: Navigating the transitions of our senior years with grace and joy.

This book could not have arrived at a better time. I turn 70 in the next couple weeks. And I conclude my employment with the collegiate ministry for which I’ve worked for 48 years in just 37 days. This is a book about the transitions of which I’m in the midst. An aging milestone. The end (so far as I know) of my paid employment.

A word about the author. David J. Claassen is a friend. After visiting several congregations, my fiancé and I joined the church of which Dave was pastor in 1978. We were getting married back in our home town but Dave did our marriage counseling, offering tons of practical wisdom for beginning our marriage well. We are still married after 46 years. Though only in his church for a few years, we have remained friends with him and his wife Diann.

I admired the way he loved and cared for his people over the course of his and their lifetimes. He knew the wait staff of restaurants and coffee shops all around his church and was a pastor to many who never entered his church building. I was most impressed by his decision to step down, preparing younger leaders to take his place And since then he and his wife split each year living near and helping their two children and many grandchildren, in Florida, and in rural Mexico. No scandals. Just good care for the people entrusted to him by God.

This book is about growing old gracefully. Claassen believes we needn’t stop growing as we age. He uses the term “older” because we are in the midst of a process, not a static state. And he speaks of aging “gracefully,” as people who extend the favor of God to others, rather than as old “grumps”!

The book is organized into thirty-one short chapters, each just a few pages in length. And the text is in a large enough font size to make for easy reading. In addition, each reading focuses on one idea, illustrated with everyday stories, anchored in biblical truth.

Among the ideas addressed are the transitions and losses of age, the feeling of being a burden upon others, and our declining energy and changes in health. Contrary to what we might think, these changes bring new opportunities. For example, our need for rest opens us to receive the gift of rest and permits others to slow down. In addition, the freedom from work responsibilities free us to be a blessing to children and grandchildren as well as have the time for study and reflection. Because we’ve reached the point of no longer having anything to prove, we are able to be self forgetful and focus on others.

An important concern of the book is finishing well. One of the ways we finish well as to persevere, to keep growing to the end. While we grow spiritually, we let go of many things, including possessions as we simplify and friendships, as some we love die. In all this, we lean into our hope of eternal life. For example, Claassen shares how the hope of eternal life that he preached at over 350 funerals has become dearer as his own days become shorter.

To sum up, what makes this collection so rich is the combination of its clear-sighted awareness of the challenges of aging coupled with its celebration of the opportunities of growing in grace as we age. Unlike the Old Grump of the opening reading, we have the opportunity to spend our days in rest, reflection, wonder and gratitude, and self-forgetful service to others. We have the chance, like many plants, to bear fruit in the last stages of our growth. In a way, this book is a kind of bookend for me. Pastor Dave, as many of us know him, offered us wisdom at the beginning of our marriage journey. And now he has returned to share this gift as my wife and I transition toward finishing our journey.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for review.