Kyle Worley

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Kyle Worley

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Kyle Worley

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Kyle Worley

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Kyle Worley

This is Kyle Worley and I'm joined

J.T. English

by my co host, Jen Wilkin and J.T.

Kyle Worley

english.

J.T. English

It's a big week for Jen. Jen, you've got a book. Crazy Jen. Now, I got to tell you before. Before I saw this pop up on Amazon. Truth be told, I didn't even know you wrote books, Jen. No, I mean, obviously we have a lot of fun with it. It's always fun to mark a milestone. We got three people that are just releasing books, writing books, working on books, you know, And Jen, I got to tell you, I'm a little bit insecure about the banter portion. Yeah, because you're young and I'm old. Well, I didn't want to say it that way, but maybe by the end of this. Maybe by the end of this, I'll be disabused of some niceties or some politeness or my position. This will be reframed because I feel like the, the, like the thing is, like, I'm never. Are you. You're never, like, supposed to ask a woman their age.

Jen Wilkin

I mean, that has been the consensus. I mean, it's just a safe path to trot, I would think.

J.T. English

Okay. Is to never ask a woman.

Jen Wilkin

There is a tread. That was bad grammar.

J.T. English

But you have written a book about aging.

Jen Wilkin

I have, yeah.

J.T. English

Okay. But is. Is my hesitancy around not asking a woman their age. Is that a polite thing or is that because I have a flawed understanding of aging?

Jen Wilkin

I would say it's an occupational hazard for you. I wouldn't be asking anybody their age. But the thing is, is, I mean, I think actually we should volunteer our age. You shouldn't have to guess, you know. Okay, so if. If it's. If it's pertinent to a conversation, I think we should just volunteer it.

J.T. English

Well, we're kind of dancing around this because, Jen, you have a book that's releasing in like two weeks. It's all about aging called Dust to Dust. And I want to know. I'm kind of getting, you know, you're always a co host and now you're a guest. Kind of. Why? Why?

Jen Wilkin

Super comfortable with it, by the way.

J.T. English

Why did you write this book?

Jen Wilkin

I wrote it because.

Unidentified Male Host

Did you write this book for Kyle and I, because you.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, that's right. Honestly, though, I hope maybe, you know, all of us won't be quite so, like, not thoughtless as wrong. You guys are not thoughtless people. I think it's just that we don't think about aging until we kind of have to. Normally, a crisis point is what makes us think about it. And then especially, I did actually kind of write it for you guys in the sense that you're both pastors. And I know that talking about this can be particularly dicey as a man speaking to both men and women. Men and women do tend to think about aging differently. And for women, you know, going back, Kyle, to your joke about can I ask women their age? Like you could ask a guy his age and not worry about it for a second, but there's this. Just this unspoken understanding that that's rude to ask a woman. And why is that? It's because women know in a way that men don't. Don't sense things, that to get older is to pass into obsolescence. I think men know that as well. But for women, it has a lot to do with appearance. You know, there's that joke that men get better looking as they age. And obviously that doesn't hold true for women without a whole lot of medical, aesthetic help. And even then, you know, there's that guy who said, I don't know if you saw this reel that was out on Instagram, but he was like, hey, you have two choices. You can look old or you can look weird, but you can't look young again. You already did that. It's either old or weird. So that's. I thought that was hysterical.

Unidentified Male Host

We can't say that either.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, yeah, you can't. But this is what I'm saying. There are a lot of things that I think it's hard for a pastor to say on this. And. And I also. I don't want to mislead listeners to think that the book is dealing primarily with medical aesthetics, because it's not. That's actually. It's only a small, small portion of what the book is talking about. I think the medical aesthetics conversation only gets framed up properly within a much larger conversation. So my main hope with the book is to help men and women think about aging before they're old or if you're already in the second half of life, to think about how to walk through that part of life, thinking back over where you came from and how. And how caregiving should be understood at any phase of human life.

J.T. English

Well, I have to ask the question, which is you are, like, the champion of Bible literacy.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah.

J.T. English

So, like, what does the Bible say about aging? Like, that's the question I have to ask you, and I think that's the question our audience would assume. Like, you probably looked at what the Bible had to say about aging before you wrote a book on aging. I mean, I think that's a pretty safe assumption. So what did you learn? Anything? Were you surprised by anything, or was it what you knew and you found some fresh ways to articulate and just maybe give us a sense of, like, what are some of the biblical principles when we're talking about aging?

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, I would say it's the second thing. I think I knew what was in there. I think most people know what's in there, or a fair number of people know what's in there, but they haven't thought about how it should impact the way that they are living, even if they're still on the first half of the curve of life. And so, you know, you guys actually have helped me a ton with thinking about framing up all of these conversations in terms of false stories and true stories. And when it comes to aging, we are deluged with false stories in the culture.

J.T. English

Yeah. And let's pause there before we get to some of those false stories, because I just want to reintroduce your audience. Like, what we're even talking about.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah, yeah.

J.T. English

Because, like, a new listener might be listening on this. So, jt, you use this grid. We've used this grid. We use this grid in the Deep Discipleship program, but we also use this grid in. Remember and rehearse your book on Christian story. You talk about false story and true stories real quickly. Like when. When Jen says that this grid that we use across a range of our material. Now, what is that and what is it kind of rooted in? What's the engine behind that? And what's the difference between a false story and a true story?

Unidentified Male Host

Yeah, there's been a lot of, kind of, I think, helpful thoughts around the idea that we are storied beings. In other words, some philosophers call it we're narratival animals. And what they mean by that is we find ourselves living in all of stories. And what happens in every single culture ever since the creation of time is there are certain stories, and some of those stories help us live towards what is true, good, and beautiful. And some of those stories tend to detract from what is true, good, and beautiful. So some of those false stories that we find ourselves living in. In the 21st century might be the false story of, like, romanticism, that your feelings are both real and reliable. Everything that you feel is true and good. And you should, like, kind of go into those feelings and trust them as kind of a source for how to navigate life. Another false story might be perfectionism, that you are meant to be perfect. And every time you walk into a room or enter a situation, your responsibility is to make things more perfect. As an enneagram, one that's kind of like the way that I live through the world of, like, I can just sense imperfections everywhere, both in myself and in the world. But the reality is that isn't the gospel story. That isn't the true story of the world of God creating all things and making all things. And he doesn't need me to make all things perfect, because he's the perfect one, and he's the one who one day will make all things tell us or perfect. And so the reality is our false stories tend to have a sense of truth to them. They have little bits and pieces of truth that tend to deceive us. And so one of the things that we've said around discipleship is that the way that you can become a more holistic disciple is by not only knowing, but learning how to live into the true story of the world. And so when it comes to aging, man, there's all I want. I want to hear the way that you frame it, Jen, because I've not had a chance to look at the book yet, but there's so many false stories right now as it relates to aging, as it relates to our bodies, as it relates to our appearance. And so I would imagine that's kind of the lens that you took of there are false stories in the world, but the Bible is telling a truer story about aging.

Jen Wilkin

Right. And I think that what complicates this is there's all the false stories that are in the culture. But then the question is, how are those false stories informing our subculture, like, within the church, how have we been susceptible to those? And I think the aging conversation has. Has a particular traction or the. I'm sorry, the. The. The wanting to avoid it or modify it has a particular traction within the church because we know that death is an enemy. Right. So then how do we think about aging? Is aging also an enemy? Because that's what the culture thinks. And so I think among Christians, what I find is they just haven't always really thought about it much beyond that. There are two aspects to thinking about this One is how we perceive our own bodies. What's their purpose? So a theology of the body as it relates to aging. But then there's also how we perceive the purpose of our bodies. Are our purpose. Do our bodies terminate on our own needs and wants or are they primarily for something else? And so in the book I make the argument they're primarily for service to others. And if you think about, I want to get to the false stories in just a second. But if you think about an extremely elderly person and then you remember the words of Jesus when he describes the people who were his true followers, and he says they were people who clothed the naked, gave water to the thirsty, fed the hungry, visited those who were in prison. And if you think about it, an elderly person becomes, if they live a long life, imprisoned in their own body, like their personhood is still growing and deepening. And I realize there are exceptions to this, I'm speaking generally, but there are people who end up with cognitive issues and things like that, but their interior person still feel like everybody listening to this knows I feel younger than I am. And that's the way that an elderly person feels. And so when we provide care for them, we actually tick boxes on all of the things that set us out as markers of followers of Jesus. But I don't think we often apply that thinking to elderly. We think we're supposed to be literally visiting people in prison, which I think we should. But there are many ways to be imprisoned when it comes to our physical bodies. And for not every, for everyone doesn't get there in old age. Some people get there sooner. And so it's sacred work that our bodies are meant for. For those of us who have not yet aged to where we're receivers of care, we might, as long as we're still in a caregiving phase. But what the world will tell you is my body, my choice. And that's an anti Christian message. We understand that when it comes to things like abortion, but we get a little fuzzier on it when it comes to things like medical aesthetics or how much I should work out or you know, should I take creatine or whatever. And some of these things are morally neutral and some of them are less so. And we don't have a good framework for parsing through what falls into what category. Some of those things can be either sinful or non sinful based on motive. Like it might be the same outward action. But if your motive is to bring attention to yourself versus to serve others, you know, I mean, you can keep Your body in good shape for two very different reasons. So it's, it's, it's a difficult conversation. It requires, I think, a lot of thought, and most of us are giving it very little thought.

Unidentified Male Host

Jen, would you say, I wonder if you'd frame it this way. Not if you framed it this way in the book, but just to help me or our listeners. Like, maybe there's two. I don't know how many false stories you have in the book, but there's a false story of Gnosticism, our bodies don't matter at all, and a false story of materialism. My body belongs to me, and it matters more than anything else. And so those are kind of the two ditches. And so it seems like you're painting a different path than that. Would you frame it that way?

Jen Wilkin

Kind of, yeah. So in the book, I talk about how, you know, you can't separate your body from your. From your soul. Those two things matter together. In fact, you guys actually were helpful to me on this. When I was, when I was putting together the book, I was like, I want to make sure I get this right. But there's a saying that's been really helpful to me, and it's. Bodies decline. People develop, in other words, our bodies because of the fall. They're going to arc up and down in the, in their ability to, to sustain life. But our interior lives actually do what they were meant to do all along. If you're in Christ, they continue to arc up into the right. We're being transformed from glory to glory is the way that the, the Bible would say it. And so it's that eternal life begins now thing with our interior lives. But there's this reality that the bodies that are, that are housing them are, are moving in a different direction. And then the question becomes, is the fact that they're moving in a different direction good or bad? And what we find is that, as with all things, the Lord takes something that ought to have been bad for us and uses it for our good. And so in the same way that he uses any form of suffering to sanctify us, I would say that aging, if you live a long life, is. This is the inescapable suffering that meets all of us. And so even if you have managed to avoid suffering in all of your earlier years, old age is an invitation into identifying with Christ that is unavoidable and that we shouldn't seek to avoid. We should seek to walk through it with dignity, with appropriate agency, and with help. And so this is, you know, one of the false stories in our culture is that we grow to adulthood, which we would call autonomy, and I use the term loosely, but that you grow to autonomy and then you are never supposed to return to dependence, that it's a failure if you return to dependence. And this shapes so much of the way that we structure our lives. And it's behind the idea that nobody wants to be a. And I'm using the common language burden to their children. Right. Because all we can see in that scenario is loss. We don't perceive that there's any reciprocal blessing between the caregiver and the care receiver that might actually be an essential part of what it means to be human.

J.T. English

Well, let me ask you this, Jen. Is there, when you talk about the person developing, does the Bible does make a connection, it seems like, between age and wisdom? Is that true?

Jen Wilkin

Right. So let's, let's walk through some of these false stories because I think it'll throw it into. Into relief for us. So the world's false story says that the elderly are obsolete, but the Bible's true story says that the elderly are invaluable. In other words, they possess a kind of wisdom that you simply cannot find unless you have lived longer than the people around you. There is a kind of wisdom that is only accessed through long life. Okay, the. And so if you think about, you know, well, let's just keep going. We'll hit on this some more. The world's false story says aging is a diminishment or a loss of identity. Right. Because we base productivity as part as a key factor of our identity. And the Bible says that aging is a completion and a deepening of identity. The world's false story says aging is a disease. Think about how we treat aging, with surgeries and with medicines. You know, there's like a cure for aging. The Bible says it's a gift, an opportunity and a privilege. And this actually makes sense when you think about mortality rates throughout human history. The world that the Bible is written to, where it says all of these things about aging and what a gift it is, and that gray hair is a crown of glory. And we're all like, really? Gray hair is a sign of obsolescence in our. In our culture. But in ancient cultures.

J.T. English

What about no hair? Just asking. Not for me, really. For somebody else.

Jen Wilkin

You can keep them guessing.

J.T. English

Okay, great.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah. But if you think about it, in the ancient world, average life Expectancy was between 25 and 35 years of age. And so that doesn't mean everybody died by age 35. It meant that because of infant and maternal death rates and wars and sickness that you could expect if you had four children that one would die before the age of one and another one would die before the age of 10. So this drives the average numbers down. But even with that, most people found old age to be 55 to 65 years of age. 55 to 65 years of age. Average life expectancy today is 80 in the United States. So right about the time that we start trying to cover how old we are, we're entering into a phase of life that was not given to the vast majority of people who live before us.

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Kyle Worley

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J.T. English

Yeah, that is really fascinating. Unusual.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah.

J.T. English

Is that part of the reason why you felt compelled to write this book right now? Was it, did it feel like you were addressing, like, wow, we are, we are faced with these a lot with a uniquely long, in terms of the history of the world, timeline, life in terms of average life expectancy, and yet we're woefully unprepared to address that extension. Like, we don't have the, the moral. We don't have the moral and theological engine and vocabulary to account for that. Because I will say, I think that where they're for, for what hasn't been spoken about as it pertains to aging generally. I feel like the Christian community has been rather vocal. Whether people have listened or not is a different question on retirement and what it should be or shouldn't be.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah.

J.T. English

So there's like a lot of thoughts on retirement, but not a lot of thoughts on aging. And, and probably one should precede the other. You should probably have a sense of what life is and what a person is before you start thinking about, like, what will I do with this discretionary time, so to speak.

Jen Wilkin

Right. Well, I think one of the arguments that I would make in the book, I don't think that I say it explicitly, but there's really not. Discretionary time is not as much of a thing as we think it is, or discretionary time is vastly overrated. So one of the things that I talk about in the book, and this is my. It's not prescriptive, it's descriptive, is the experience that my own family has had of caregiving upward and downward. And so I live in close proximity to my in laws and I also live in close proximity to some of my grandkids. You guys know that much of my week is taken up by either watching grandkids or helping with my aging parents. And I am at a stage of life, I'm 57. So I'm at a stage of life where most people are thinking about the freedom of being an empty nester. And what I am learning because of my particular set of circumstances and the age and quality of life of my parents is that empty nesting is kind of overrated, that I actually could have meaningful interactions with those who are closest to me. And that caregiving was not meant to just be. Most of us think caregiving is something that we do when we have small children and you have 18 years and you're done. And I think my big takeaway from this extended reflection on aging is that all of life is caregiving.

J.T. English

Say more about that you're either giving

Jen Wilkin

or receiving care, and that to give or to receive care is an act of dignity. And that we think receiving care is a sign of weakness and therefore a failure of some kind. Because in our culture, to be autonomous is the highest sign of success, that you don't need anything or anyone.

J.T. English

Well, there is, there is also, there's also too, it feels like there is the confrontation of, of acknowledging your dependency, like, which is like, that's a confronting thing. Certainly there's also the confrontation of selfishness.

Jen Wilkin

Yes, say that, say what you mean by that.

J.T. English

Well, that, like, gosh, there is a confrontation in being willing to, to be honest enough that, that we are in need of care. Then there's a confrontation that comes with realizing that, am I willing to give care? Am I willing to give care? Am I willing to extend care even at cost?

Jen Wilkin

Right. And so that's one of the things, you know, that the book is trying to do is it's saying, think about the way you felt about caregiving downward with, you know, with children. And this all came from when my mother was dying. My mom was so concerned about being a burden, which is very much her generation of parents, and did not want to interrupt my life at all. And I kept saying, you're not an interruption, you're a person to love, not a problem to solve. You know, and the truth was there were a lot of problems to solve related to caring for her. But you know what, There were a lot of problems to solve related to caring for me when I was an infant and she didn't see it as burdensome. And I think that one of the reasons, there are several reasons that we look at, at caregiving upward differently. One is the question of potentiality. Like an infant is going to become and be and grow. And there's a lot of, you know, there's all of these open ended questions about infants that we like, I'm investing in the future when I care for an infant. And that's not there with the elderly. But there are other reasons that care for the elderly is every bit as sacred as care for those at the beginning of life. In the case of my mother, it all felt to her like, well, what? Don't waste time on me, you know, and, and so I, what I find is a lot of us hear that from our parents and we're like, oh, well, I want to honor what my parents want. And so we don't factor end of life caregiving into our horizons at all. And we're surprised by it when it announces itself unexpectedly, because that's how it usually happens. There's some life event that happened. Like, Kyle, you've had a medical scare with your dad recently, and you all of a sudden realize, oh, there, there are a lot of questions I haven't even thought about, of how this could go down. And we do think about what we might give up when we have an infant. Now, I do think there are a lot of people who are still way too surprised at how hard it is to have an infant when they have one. I'm like, there were people who could have told you how hard this was, you know. But the same thing is true with caregiving for aging parents. When we anticipate it and plan for it and see it as a part of the natural cycle of life, then we're more likely going to enter into it with way less disruption and frustration and regret than we would otherwise.

J.T. English

Yeah, but there's virtue.

Jen Wilkin

And I want to acknowledge something really fast. Not everybody has a good relationship with their parents. And I do talk about that in the book. So please don't, don't be sitting there thinking, you know, I have this horrible relationship with my parents. Has she even thought about that? We do talk about that.

J.T. English

Well, and that's important to know and to consider. But I think it is also worth saying that, you know, I. I like to think that I am pretty abreast of what kind of discipleship direction is given to people in churches. And I've been in a lot of churches and. And there's a lot of discipleship direction that is given towards preparing to be a caregiver to the young. I don't know that I have ever heard a sermon or an application of a sermon or a forum or a seminar or anything on disciple. Biblically rooted discipleship direction towards caregiving for the old. For the old.

Jen Wilkin

Not only that. I mean, this. That's only the tip of the iceberg of what we're not talking about in the church, because discipleship is for all of life. But so often when we think about who are. Where are we going to spend our money, where are we going to invest our resources in the church, where are we spending it? With young adults, with youth, with. With student ministry. And I, I think we should. I mean, I get it, there's potentiality there, but we should also have a framework for thinking about how we're investing in discipleship for those who are later in life. I have this hilarious memory of my mom. This is an apple didn't fall far from the tree story. I'm about to tell you. The last thing I took down from my mother's apartment when she died was the sign that was on her door that said but Bible Study Thursdays, 2pm Here she taught Bible studies in her senior living community until the final days of her life. And she was, and I remember there was one time we were both going through the book of Romans. Now this is to say nothing of how hard it is even for these people to attend church, right? There was a guy who would preach at his church and then come to their facility and preach afterwards for them, which was so precious. But many churches haven't started to think about like shut ins, you know, how are these people going to receive the elements, all these things because we're focused downward. But so my mom was teaching this Bible study and, and I was like, how's Romans going for you? Because you guys know how much I loved Romans. And so I was venting and, and she goes, jennifer, I could write a book on geriatric Bible study because one woman in the group can't hear, one room in the group can't see, another woman's having memory issues. Another woman can barely walk down to get into the room. And she's like, it's like the comedy of errors. And I thought, I have not even thought about that. You know, and this is my mom's reality as she is discipling people in their 80s, you know, and the local church doesn't even have enough parking spots for the, for the elderly, much less thoughtful programming. Some do churches that, there's a church in Longview, you guys actually probably know Andrew Hebert and, and his church. You, you pull into that parking lot, he has 1800 senior adults on a Saturday, on a Sunday. And so they have a very well developed ministry. They think about how to pair the elderly with the student ministry on a regular basis, which is amazing. The guy who's their senior adults minister actually thought he was called into student ministry and at in his 30s became the senior adult pastor there. And he's like, you'd be amazed how similar it is. It was just so funny because the discretionary timepiece and all that. But they, they've thought about that. They, they provide respite care for caregivers.

J.T. English

I love that.

Jen Wilkin

And they, and, and all kinds of stuff like that, that, that a lot of churches haven't thought of. But here's the thing. By 2030, there will be more people in the United States over the age of 65 than under the age of 18.

Unidentified Male Host

That's crazy.

Jen Wilkin

That's in four years. And the church is not thinking about this at all that I can tell. So we're facing a full blown end of life orphan care crisis. And the church could be, we're the OGs on this stuff. Like we could really rise to this challenge in a way that does demonstrate a whole life pro life ethic.

Kyle Worley

That's right.

J.T. English

That's right. I mean, I just preached to James1 this past week and what is true religion, you know, but to care for the widows and the orphans. And you know, I just talked with our congregation just about, you know, we're, we're very young, multiple kids, you know, that just kind of, you guys, you guys know the demographics of our church. And one of the things I just talk with them about is God's call on us to not just extend loving care. You know, that, you know, James's language there is, yes, it's orphans and widows in particular because they're high need, but they're also representative of need based groups, the young and the old. So like, James isn't just saying orphans and widows, he's using them as a general vulnerability statement. Yes, general vulnerabilities. So it's like, yes, widows and orphans as exemplaries of a group, but they are exemplaries of a group that both need care, which are children, the young and the old. And so I think that, gosh, it doesn't just seem that, like, hey, this would be a good idea from a discipleship standpoint. It does seem like the Bible is saying, like, hey, it's a portrayal too of being able to love those. I think the flow of that logic in James 1 is that as recipients of unconditional love, of, of, of love that is granted on the basis of nothing that can be returned, we're now a community that's been freed to love those for whom it is of not social advantage or profit for us to love.

Jen Wilkin

That's right. I mean, that's why he spends time talking about favoritism. Right, Right.

J.T. English

So we can love these people. And there is something that the Lord will produce in that, but it is not something that is produced on the world's ROI system.

Jen Wilkin

No, because just strictly balance sheet speaking, there is no return on investing in those who are dying right now. That's not true. You actually find there's a great deal of reciprocal blessing associated with it. Anyone who works in hospice care can tell you that. But I do think that when you think about what are the true marks of belief, I mean, Jesus says anyone who doesn't care for his own family is worse than an unbeliever. And then we know that he also expands the definition family out to the church. And so, you know, maybe you don't have the opportunity to care for your own parents, but you have spiritual mothers and fathers in your church who you can honor, show honor to, and care for in some way, or the people who are caring for them can receive your help. But, you know, I think it's been reflected that you can measure the degree civilization has achieved by the way that it cares for its weakest members like, and. And that. That Christians are called to serve those for whom they can respect nothing in return. And that's what caring for the elderly can boil down to. Now, again, I. I do think that the Lord does return a blessing on you when you do it, but there's. There's no material blessing associated with it. In fact, there's material cost and there's time cost associated with it. But it's. It's cost that is every bit as much worth paying as the cost that we pay for a newborn. But it's a different kind of reward.

J.T. English

That's good. I want to end. Jen, I sent this to you when it was first released. It'll be a few weeks old by the time it comes out. But you guys know that I am a huge fan of Bob Dylan. He is my absolute favorite singer, songwriter of all time. And he was recently asked by the New York Times there's like a. A thing they were asking a number of people to comment on. And he's 85. He's still touring. Bob Dylan is still touring. I saw. I had the privilege of seeing him two years ago and it was really powerful. But they asked him about the best thing and the worst thing about being 80. And I have to read this because I loved it so much. This is Bob Dylan. The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you.

Jen Wilkin

You.

J.T. English

It's freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don't chase the parade anymore. You're an old king from some vanished country, which is like, unbelievable. He still got it, man. This guy's still in his bag.

Jen Wilkin

Still a lyricist. Yep.

J.T. English

You're harder to program. You're not rushing to become anything. And you're not haunted by things that you did. You're haunted by how little of it really mattered in the way you thought it would. That's what he says. The best thing about being 80s. That's incredible. No. Well, to the Worst thing. The worst thing about being 80 is that you still want to say yes to everything, but the world moves without asking. The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says, we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you. And I love this last part. It sounds like a luxury, but it's not. And also, you've run out of illusions. People treat you like you've either. Either you've solved something or you've lost something and you haven't it. You see life repeating itself everywhere. Like that is. Like. That is so unbelievable that it made me just like, want to go back and listen to everything the man has ever written.

Unidentified Male Host

It sounds like the book of Ecclesiastes.

J.T. English

That's exactly what it does.

Jen Wilkin

Well, and I just. I would argue that if we become. If we start to number our days right before we're in our latter days, then we're able to process what you're hearing him process as we're moving toward it instead of only in hindsight.

J.T. English

That's good.

Jen Wilkin

My argument in the book is that the Lord has not left us guessing at how to age. That he actually, in his kindness, has given us a way to map the process and to move forward with courage and living into the true story, which is that to age is a rare gift. It's just a rare gift. And that while the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, there is a way to say, blessed be the name of the Lord to the end of our days.

J.T. English

Well, listen, this was fun to have you as a featured guest and not just a co host this episode. I don't need to tell the audience. You already know. The book's gonna be great. It's gonna be solid. You. You know what to expect when Jen writes a book now. And so.

Jen Wilkin

And it's meant to be done in groups, which is, you know, another thing that you guys have. We've said over and over again all theology is meant to be done in community. So I wrote questions at the end of the book. But ideally, you don't want to read this and just think about aging yourself. You want to have conversations so that you have some shared light and some companionship as you move forward.

J.T. English

Yeah, so I'll do it for her so she doesn't have to. The book's available wherever good books are sold. Her name is Jen Wilkin, not Jan Watkins. So Two Eyes, no S, Dust to Dust is what you're looking for. And we hope you'll read it and check it out. You know, this is just another one of our summer episodes, but it was really fun to get to talk about this. With the books release this summer upcoming episodes, I'm talking with the Lithos team to talk about why every Christian should read Pilgrim's Progress. We had a lot of fun recording that episode. And then Shane Pruitt and Shelley Melia are joining me to talk about Gen Alpha and how do we reach them. So those are some upcoming episodes to look out for as these continue to release. Jen's book is available in the next couple weeks. You can pre order it now. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. Grace and Peace.