My guess is that fifty-year wedding anniversaries are fading faster than a cotton T-shirt in the Fresno sun.

Bad metaphor? Maybe. I’ve been on vacation.

Even so, I’ve been reflecting on the natural order of life lately, particularly as I observed the lovely passing of my in-laws’ fiftieth wedding anniversary this past week. There we were, three generations of  Ferdinandsens frolicking in Napili Bay on the island of Maui, as the grateful guests of the honored couple. While I was supposed to be indulging in tropical drinks and sunscreen, I was meditating on the four stages of mankind: childhood, independence, parenting, and finally . . . sunset.

In our extended family, these stages have moved in proper order, each one giving way to the next with ever-increasing requirements on our maturity. Childhood is first with its physical freedoms and its “glad animal movements” (props to poet William Wordsworth). The grandchildren, marveling at giant sea turtles and rainbows, were beautifully selfish this week; all they had to do was show up. It’s okay, though, because their chronic taking, their naïve delight, is a temporary condition.

The middle generation, 2 x 3, had already passed some of the tests of marriage with its emotional demands and gradual sacrifice. The six of us sat positioned between two generational ends, sturdy and grown up, forty-five years of marriage between us, and still learning to bend. The maturity requirements will increase yet again when the time comes to care for our aging parents, a blessed return they will receive on the investment made so long ago.

Finally, the celebratory couple, bathed in the fading orange sunset, must have considered the moment, fifty years in the making. God planned generations to work this way, and it brings structure and wholeness to the world he created.

But such order in life is becoming rare.

In my community lately, I’ve noticed a common rearrangement of these terms. Some children, given no space to frolic, must move from child to adult in unnatural fits and starts. In high school, adolescents abandon the middle stage and jump to parenting long before their maturity thermostat has had time to warm. Fathers, then, stuck in perpetual adolescence having had no models of self-sacrifice, are struggling to parent their children. And finally, the elderly, given over to the care of retirement facilities or the medical community, see no lovely orange sunsets at all, only a black horizon.

I’ve known for years that the family is important. It’s the right cliché for evangelicals like me. But I see it more deeply now. Families aren’t planted in a day. They are slow-growing organisms, and the best ones move down into the soil with steady purpose. The generations learn maturity in careful stages as we give up part of ourselves in little pieces. I will survive the requirements of caring for my aging parents because God allowed me to practice giving myself away long before. This is the way of man. It is God’s way.

Solomon gives advice for each stage of man. So to my children, I say from Ecclesiastes 11, “You who are young, make the most of your youth. Relish your youthful vigor. Follow the impulses of your heart. If something looks good to you, pursue it. But know also that not just anything goes; You have to answer to God for every last bit of it.”

And to myself I must remember from verse 6, “Go to work in the morning and stick to it until evening without watching the clock. You never know from moment to moment how your work will turn out in the end.” 

And finally to the patriarchs, I give you Solomon’s poetry from Ecclesiastes 9: Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, Drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure! Dress festively every morning. Don't skimp on colors and scarves. Relish life with the spouse you love. Each and every day of your precarious life. Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange for the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one! Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it . . .”

I always have that awkward feeling that any celebration of God’s ideal should be tempered with an apology to those who aren’t experiencing it. Hey, not this time. This party took too long to plan, the family too long to grow. But we would all do well to remember the encouraging words of the African proverb: What is the best time to plant a tree? Fifty years ago. When is the second best time? Today.