Am I getting old??

                                               Happy, sunny thursday to you!

This is just a post about the thoughts that goes on inside my mind. I wonder every now and then about age, and it strikes me that age is just a figure. Or is it perhaps a way of being?
Some weeks ago I went to celebrate one of our oldest in the congregation, S that turned 95.
When people turn 90, 95 and 100 they get a visit from the minister or vicar, dressed in our best kaftan, and holding a bunch of flowers. I always sing a birthdaysong the sisters at Ersta Diaconal institute used to sing, from 1885 something. Yes, sometimes its good to be hard of hearing, I imagine...
S was dressed up and sat in her room. She greated me, somewhat wondering, saw the flowers and heard the song and then said:" Well, you know, those are nice flowers, you just skip along and give them to someone old and sick."

Seeing my parishioners grow old and grey, and eventually disappear from their place in church, I tend to get melancholy, which is very swedish.  The bible holds some interesting notes about time and aging, emptyness is a word often used, pointing to the fact that we have limited lifespan. Gods time is always now. Don't look back, Jesus says. But we do.
I turned 53 and had my hip replaced, now the doctor tells me I need an eyesurgery to replace my clouded lenses. What next?  My oldest daughter laugh hysterically at some jokes on internet, I want to keep up so I ask what it is and she says: You wouldn't understand Mum, you are too old! Or rather she says: you are the wrong generation. That is nicely put!
When I was a child, people of 50 seemed close to death, same goes for our daughters, they refer to people as being VERY old, meaning over 30.
It has always been like this, I think. Old litterature and old poets , old thinkers, philosophers, all say the same: They don't understand the young, they are horrible, nosy, noisy and irresponsible. The young accuse the older to be stubborn, backwards, thickheaded and conservative. From Aristoteles an onward.
Thats me. I see fears everywhere. I look at the ever increasing pace of development and desperately want to bring things to a hold. I often feel that things are happening too fast because we have means to make them happend.  I have concerns and fears about many things today and claim that we really need to get together and think things through before we say YES to every new invention and way of thinking. 
So am I getting old and grumpy? Yes, perhaps. What do you think? Am I seeing ghosts where there are none?  Am I the only one haunted sometimes with the "What ifs"??
We must cope with the worries of our times, there really is no time for the old What If I...
Regret choices and actions are pointless unless we learn from it.
Today we have to lean on what is not changing, the road laid , the peace settled, the truths that holds. 
And for that matter, I must stop moaning about age, age is but a figure, see here the beauty of age, the church with its 15th century interior, paintings found and lovingly restored. 

                                         This is one of the many St Nicholas churches we have along our coasts,
                                         the oldest parts of it from the 15th century, this part from 1672.

Since the oldest parts were from the catholic area, paintings were covered for centuries.
These were discovered and restored, lovely in their ancient kind of way, notice the clothing
and buildings . 

Underneath the Saviors feet a churchmouse resides, a modern contribution
to make children notice and ask questions.
"The old ragged cross" -   A song often played by the local church jazzband.
So, the question of age is really not important , we get older, we are supposed to, and how beautiful an old person can be.  Yes I am slowly getting older, but why bother? It won't matter in eternity.