Am I a Swiftie?

 “Did you know that Taylor Swift . . .” I began. 

“You are a Swiftie??!! three incredulous voices with matching incredulous faces assaulted me around the dining table. 

What the three men (husband, sons #1 and #3) did not verbalize was, at your age?! 

No, at my age, I am not a Swiftie. But as a writer, and now as a facilitator in Sunday school for women, I shun linear thinking and work at being a lateral thinker while enjoying the process. I try to answer “whys” and “wherefores” with as wide a perspective as I could manage within all life stages, especially the youth's. I feel old, but I refuse to think old. 

Keeping pace with changes is not about taking part but keeping watch. 

Even if I now see where fashion colors are going, I stick to my monochromes and what the Gen Z’s call matchy-matchy. I read books from the printed page not from the Internet. I wear leather footwear to church and not sneakers. Old habits neither die nor fade away. 

Digging deeper, however, I may be accused of not being inclusive—stubbornly hanging on to the values I learned by grace from the good Book. 

These verses say it for me in concrete terms:  

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV)  

Keeping pace with changes is closely keeping watch where the world is going because . . . 

“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” (Revelation 16:15)