"Hey, it's my month!"

May is "Older American's Month." I guess now that I am 54 years old, that makes me an older American or maybe I have to wait to turn 65. I'm not actually sure. Maybe it's the people who are turning 70 this year, maybe May is their month. Of course, if you are only in the third grade this year, maybe it's the sixth graders, maybe they are the older Americans. Then there are the college students and to a third grader they are really old.

Wait! I know who the older people are. They are the graduate students in the gerontology department at college. They are really-really old.

Ok, enough. The number associated with our age is so misleading. After all it's just a number. Pick a number, any number. How about 40. What does that tell you? Well for sure, it means that this person has been on the earth long enough to have circumnavigated the sun 40 times. I think that is the only fact, that I can tell you about that person. The rest would probably be conjecture based on a stereotype of what I think a 40 year-old person might be.

How about 75? When I say I know someone who is 75, what do you think? What do you imagine? Is it someone with wrinkly skin, barely standing under their own weight? Is it someone running a marathon? It's just a number.

The face of aging is changing and will continue to change over the next three decades or so. Person's of the Baby Boom generation will change it. People at 60 will be starting new careers. 75 year olds will be climbing mountains, writing novels, and a whole host of other activities.

Finally, from God's perspective there isn't really that much difference between 9 and 90. Afterall, how old is God? The real age of a person isn't measured in years, so much as it is measured in attitude. I know 30 year-olds who act like their 106, and I know a 106 year old who is going on 30.

So, May is "Older American's Month." Who are these older American's? It looks like maybe it's not just for me, maybe it's for us - all of us, 9 or 90.