A Peevish Old Man?

Eric Anderson

Sixty-two is nobody’s landmark year. Indeed as I mark this particular birthday, I tell myself that I am not anywhere near the biblical “three-score and ten,” and that many of my colleagues among Adventist college presidents are older than I.  (Well, make that “some of my colleagues are older than I.”)

What makes me feel old is that right now, as I write this, my youngest son is celebrating his 30^th birthday. Only an ancient person has a thirty-two year old child.

And then there is my growing collective of pet peeves, recurring querulous questions, and hoary harrumphs.

Would it be all right to ration the number of times people on the platform say “Happy Sabbath?”  Or is it the Adventist version of crossing yourself, something expected scores of times in each service?

Why does the piano player never participate in prayer? Why should a solemn appeal to the Almighty need background music?

While we are thinking about worship, why would it be popish heresy to use incense in a church service, but perfectly okay to flood the church with “smoke” produced by dry ice?

Mind you, my pet peeves are not restricted to church time.

I don’t understand the current vogue of tattoos. Why would a professional basketball player want to look like a felon in parole or a Maori warrior? (What will edgy tattoos look like thirty years from now?)

I am just getting warmed up.

When did educated people stop knowing what it means to “beg the question?” And what about those TV announcers who think that “fortuitous” means “lucky” or an “enormity” is really big?

And why are today’s fashions so uncomfortable and funny looking?  Whose idea was it, anyway, to start making men’s dress shirts so tight?

Give me another year or two and I will sound just like my father.

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