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(Note: Many writers will offer a letter to some younger version of themselves. In this space, I once published A Letter to My Twenty-Two-Year-Old Self. But I am not sure I have ever seen anyone reach forward and ask questions of their future self.)

Dear Eighty Year-old Self, 

I have so many curiosities to ask about. I’ll try to not just spit them out into this space, but rather take them in topics. However, the restraint in doing that is not easy. 

First of all, did we make it? Am I still alive at eighty? I dare not take that for granted. We get so complacent in a modern culture about length of life. But instead, my body of work has taught me that this is a fragile gift that not everyone is given. I hope so. I want to see eighty, although I am not in a hurry about it. 

Did that fall I took at sixty, not being feeble but instead not being mindful of where I was stepping, do some lasting damage that I am now paying for? Did I lose the weight at sixty because I needed to get in better shape, thereby buying myself a healthier senior adulthood? How’s that shoulder I had reconstructed at twenty-five? The knee I had worked on at fifty-five? Are they still holding up? 

Okay. Let me ask the obvious. Did the flying cars the Jetsons had finally get invented? Is Rosie the Robot cleaning my house? Can Scottie beam us up now? Are there Jedis truly living among us, with mystical abilities?  

I am certainly hoping that I am long since retired now. But I also hope I didn’t just quit. I’ve known far too many people who simply quit in their senior adult years. I hope I have invested myself with purpose. I hope I have found a balance of refreshing rest and rewarding activity within a world that will still need me helping out. 

Did we take those trips we’ve been dreaming of but couldn’t do either because they would involve too many Sundays? Or because we hadn’t even thought of them yet? I sure hope so. Travel shows us that not everyone lives like we do or even thinks about what we think about. 

Here’s an important one. Did I end up planting any trees that I will never sit under? That may be one of life’s highest callings. Have I left anything in place of significance that will last? 

Father Richard Rohr has said so poignantly, “All too many of us spend our lives climbing and climbing. Striving for place and accomplishment, only to realize all too late that we had our ladder leaned up against the wrong wall all along.” This is a matter of legacy and purpose. Will my life have mattered after I am gone?  

I wonder if I carried out my sacred calling before I retired? Even more, I wonder if like all who share my faith, did I serve faithfully even beyond? Did my work connect anyone helpfully with their faith? Did my care, my sermons, my teachings– did any of it connect? 

I have other curiosities. Did we ever recapture some of that civility we had lost in our culture? Did humans ever get better in these last years at differing and disagreeing? I sure hope so. Because as I turned sixty, we had emerged from COVID-19 in a collective foul mood. 

Have we found relative peace on a world scale? Or are things still as fragile and unstable from region to region as they often tended to be? We cannot keep on fighting and posturing in harmful ways. Humanity will self-destruct if we can’t get a handle on how we treat each other. 

I hope I have continued to find love and grace for the rest of my life. My life story is one of surprise and adventure. But the best surprises and adventures have come through the amazing people we’ve known at every stop. Being included, wanted, loved and forgiven are not to be taken for granted. 

Consequently, I also hope I have continued to give love. If I want good things, I have to be a fount of goodness also. I hope I’ve kept that beautiful equation alive. The most enduring and perfect of it all, of course, is Elizabeth. I hope we are still enjoying life together to its fullest as I write this. 

Sincerely,
Charles

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.