I’m still limping through this stretch of the calendar. We’ve brought our painting project to a good stopping point. Welcome Week has mostly run its course. We got Cor moved back into BGSU. Olivia is starting a new job in Pittsburgh this week. Our house has been restored to a sense of normalcy that allows Marci and me to feel all right about hosting people again. There are reasons to believe that we’re right on the cusp of regaining rhythm and settling into a groove. And maybe life will feel better after some further repetition and rest (and getting past Olivia’s move into a new apartment in Pittsburgh)…

But I’m noticing that sadness has been catching up with me whenever I slow down. I’m starting to wonder if I’m grappling with my mortality in new ways these days. I’m continuing to practice the quiet life to which I feel that God has called me. I’m putting in the work as a faithful farmer, mindful of my forty acres. And it really does seem reasonable to expect that I will maintain this trajectory for the rest of my life, until the day I die. I’m not so worried about the prospect of my death, honestly, but I think I’m starting to come to terms with the decades of diminishing, or dwindling, relevance, respect, and reverence from others. It feels like I’ve started that long, slow slide — with my sons and daughter becoming increasingly independent and with new organizational structuring in H2O Kent changing my roles to help push younger leaders forward.

I know I’m not completely irrelevant. But I am intentionally trying to detach myself the world’s systems for power, fame, and wealth, and I’m realizing that this is causing me to lose step with others who prioritize such pursuits. I’ve been thinking of Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry — both of whom have died within the last week — and while they are rightly revered upon death, the fact of the matter is that their best work was really put out 30 or 40 years ago, and they weren’t considered particularly relevant to last week’s news cycles. Only their deaths have brought a spike in reverence and retrospectives. I wouldn’t have wished for an earlier death for either artist, and I wouldn’t have wanted them to stop writing or living out their core messages to whatever extent they were still able to do so. But the truth of the matter is that I just didn’t like “Rockstar” (2024) as much as “Islands in the Stream” (1982) or “Jolene” (1974), and I didn’t like Marce Catlett (2025) as much as Jayber Crow (2000) or The Wild Birds (1985). That’s just how life seems to go.

The respect piece is tied to the relevance (or lack thereof). I’ve noticed a couple of times in the last couple of weeks when students from our church have seemed to be rolling their eyes at me — like when I asked an icebreaker question about painting an object (such as Marci and me painting our house), or trying to parse the semantics of using emoticons vs. emoji… None of these were particularly meaningful things — but they felt like a foretaste of what the coming decades might hold for me. We all become increasingly decrepit if we live long enough. And it’s just harder for younger people to summon real respect for another adult they perceive to be less capable. I’m still a long way away from anyone thinking about giving me the ol’ Eskimo Elder Eviction: cut loose on an ice floe to drift out to sea and die. But the respect is already starting to erode, and there will at least be some who will be increasingly inclined to think of me as a “silly old man.” And that’s hard.

The reverence is the last thing to go — and we’re culturally conditioned to conjure it back up at the time of a person’s death. As relevance and respect fade, there may be some consolation in the way that I might be increasingly embraced as “Dear Old Dad” and “Grandpa” and “Church Elder” and “Elder Statesman” and “_____ Emeritus.” But even that seems likely to fade towards the end. Dolly Parton did more than most to keep herself in that place of reverence through her philanthropy and public appearances and dying sooner than most of us were expecting. But Wendell Berry… and Queen Elizabeth II… and other great artists and diplomats typically withdraw from the public sphere because of increasing disability and (maybe subconsciously) a desire to control their public image with the help of their family. This allows them to keep a more functional version of themselves at the front of mind for the general public. Even so, I’m guessing that it’s plenty hard and humbling to realize that the reverence that might remain for some is contingent upon their ignorance of how things really are in a given moment. “If only they knew…” must be a terrifying thought to live with until (1) everyone comes to know, and/or (2) I no longer have the capability to know. Either way, it’s hard to maintain reverence through that last, steep decline before death.

At death, everything changes. Reverence is restored first. Maybe eventually a measure of respect and even a sort of retrospective relevance. But these are ultimately short-lived, too. It only takes a generation or two until we’re just names in a cemetery, a genealogy, an archive. At least, that’s the case for most of us. Almost certainly for me. That feels sad, emotionally, but it probably shouldn’t, intellectually. It’s the logical conclusion of the processes I’ve been considering for a while now: the grass withering… the flower fading… the shadow passing… I really do think that I can find contentment in the quietude and the seasonal rhythms of “farm” life. I just need to make peace with the face from relevance, respect, and reverence.