Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

• Ephesians 4:14-15

Is not wisdom found among the aged?
    Does not long life bring understanding?

• Job 12:12

Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who come to serve in the work at the tent of meeting.

• Numbers 4:3

Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.

• Titus 2:2-6

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

• 2 Corinthians 4:16

Even when I am old and gray,
    do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
    your mighty acts to all who are to come.

• Psalm 71:18

The New Boilerplate

My wife filled a small book with “Angel” on the cover.  It was hidden with a box of crafting things.  On 18 July 2025, I thought I had posted the last of these.  But this little angel book held a prayer, followed by 71 quotes.  So, the “with a little help” series is back in business for a while.  And it will be fun for me.  She did not attribute any of the quotes.  The first quote was from James A. Garfield, the 20^th president of the USA.  The next one was disputed, with some thinking it originated with Teddy Roosevelt and others saying Fred Astaire.  After the prayer, these might be on the lighter side.

Her quote

“Middle Age is when your age starts to show around your middle.”

• Bob Hope

The Discussion

Do an AI search for this quote to find out who said the quote will give you a ton of scientific information about how your metabolism changes in your forties at some point.  Muscles do not repair themselves as they used to do.  Muscle mass begins to decline.  And middle aged people, especially office workers, do not get as much physical activity as they used to get.

Also, you might get a lot of information about what middle age is.  It is rather flexible, or so they say.  The range is 45-64 years of age, but give an even broader mark of 40-65.  Some of this is ridiculous from a mathematical sense.  Double 65 and you are at 130 years old.  Regardless of how good medicine gets, we have not had a case of a 130 year old.  The oldest person in recorded history (not counting people in the Bible) is Jeanne Calment of France who lived roughly 122 and a half years, dying in 1997.  A researcher determined that at the age of 120, human cells do not reproduce.  Thus, as cells die off, there is nothing to replace them.

But my wife and I both made a comment one day.  We did not know when it happened, but we had never given ourselves enough time to ponder.  We had become old.  We never were middle aged.

Of course, at some point, you go past halfway through your lifespan, but when you are living your life, you don’t have the time to even think about it.

Thus, I think my wife and I are not alone in this regard.  When you live life to the fullest, you are simply too busy doing what is called life to think about legacy, remembrances, or even life expectancy.

I heard a television commercial recently.  The man said that he was investing in his future self.  To do so, he was drinking some sort of protein shake.  And his last comment was that they were so good, they almost tasted like real food.

Now that should be listed on the Mount Rushmore of insane concepts.  First, we should take care of ourselves.  We only have ten fingers and ten toes, most of us.  Losing body parts is not recommended behavior.  But “investing” in your future self means that whatever you invest is being placed in a coffin or an urn.  Second. Drinking a drink mixed with a powder is never going to be as good for you as eating real food, even if it really does almost taste like real food, which I seriously doubt.

So, I like the scientific idea of metabolism, lack of activity, and muscle mass disappearing.  Finding the halfway point in my lifespan and recognizing that I am middle aged is kind of sickening.  We need to live this life with Hope, and our Hope must be in God.  Besides, in our middle years, we are parents and wage earners.  There is no time to recognize that now is “the middle.”

Besides, as Psalm 71:18 states, we still have work to do.

And if we are praising God each minute, when we go to be with God, it will simply be that much better.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory