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The Echoes Podcast dives into real-world questions about community, faith, and human connection. Guided by hosts Marcus Goodyear and Camille Hall-Ortega, each episode explores personal journeys and societal challenges with inspiring guests—from faith leaders and poets to social advocates—whose stories shape our shared experiences. Through conversations with figures like Rev. Ben McBride, who moved his family to East Oakland’s “Kill Zone” to serve his community, or poet Olga Samples Davis, who reflects on the transformative power of language, we bring to light themes of belonging, resilience, and the meaning of home.
From the creators of Echoes Magazine by the H. E. Butt Foundation, The Echoes Podcast continues the magazine's legacy of storytelling that fosters understanding, empathy, and action.
Twenty years ago, Howard Butt Jr. Hired me to be on his writing team. We had lots of fun for a few years writing books together and writing radio spots for the high calling. Mister Butt, we always called him mister Butt, was 78 years old when I started working with him. I remember presenting a project to him at his house when he was 85.
Marcus Goodyear:Can you imagine that? In America, we often talk about time like it's working against us. Where did the years go? I'm not as young as I used to be. But time is doing more than slipping away and making us older.
Marcus Goodyear:Aging is natural. When we age well, we call that maturity. So how do we age well? How do we flourish in our 60s and beyond? Maybe there are specific practices we can start in our 20s and 30s to help us age well?
Marcus Goodyear:I'm not just talking about investing in, like, the stock market or money for retirement. Wonder what does it look like to invest in ourselves. Today, we're talking about planning for our future and our legacy and flourishing no matter our age. I'm Marcus Goodyear from the H Ebert Foundation, and this is the Echoes podcast. Our guest today is Mark D.
Marcus Goodyear:Roberts, a senior fellow from the Max Dupree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary. And full disclosure, Mark used to be my boss, and he was a great boss. Mark has written numerous books, including Can We Trust the Gospels? And an incredible commentary on the book of Ephesians. Mark also co hosted his own podcast for many years called Making It Work.
Marcus Goodyear:I have a cohost too. Ladies and gentlemen, Camille Hall Ortega, my friend and colleague.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Hi, Marcus. Good to be here.
Marcus Goodyear:Mark, Roberts, welcome to the Echoes podcast.
Mark D Roberts:Thanks. It's a blast to be with you folks.
Marcus Goodyear:You were the director of Lady Lodge for many years, and you've told a story about Lady Lodge that I wanna start with. You were at a retreat, and you overheard Betty Ann Cody say, I love being old. Can you tell us about that moment?
Mark D Roberts:Sure. Betty Ann Cody, for those who don't know, was the wife of a former director of Lady Lodge. And so she was leading a devotion one morning. So it's kind of early, and that's her first line. I love being old.
Mark D Roberts:And I'm still kind of sleepy. I'm like, what? Did I hear that right? Because honestly, don't think I'd ever, ever heard anybody say that in my whole life. And she sort of knew that was a bit of a surprise.
Mark D Roberts:So she said, don't let me say that again. I love being old. And then she went on in her devotion to talk about why she loved being old. And her devotion was about wisdom and how God gives us wisdom as we age. But I just was so struck by the fact that here is somebody who is not ashamed of being old for one thing, she called herself old.
Mark D Roberts:She was 80 in her eighties. So, you know, I guess that's old, but a lot of times people don't want to acknowledge that. And it really shook me up and I always remembered it. I mean, that's partly why I talk about it because it was like, wow, wouldn't that be something? If when I was her age, if I got that far, I could say that I love being old.
Mark D Roberts:I love what I've learned in life and the richer life that I live now and the wisdom God has given me and the opportunity to use that wisdom to serve others. It a surprise and it's a great encouragement. It's really inspired a lot of my life and work since then.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Wow, I can imagine what an impactful time that would have been. I know that we're making reference to the third third, and I just want to just write up front, have you kind of define what we mean by that.
Mark D Roberts:Yeah, we talk, Dupree Center at Fuller, and I talk about the third third of life, which we use that language because people kind of get it. I mean, there's probably anybody listening that kind of gets it. And so that's part of it, but to talk about the third, third doesn't assume a particular story of life. So for example, a lot of folks would say, well, you're talking about retirement. Well, for those who experience retirement, but many don't, or the retirement story can be a very diverse one.
Mark D Roberts:Sometimes people will talk about encore or something. There's certain language we avoid. People in my age bracket really don't like to be called elderly or there are other things. So third third is neutral. If you actually wanted to know, well, when does it actually start?
Mark D Roberts:If you look at current statistics in The United States, the third third of life starts at fifty two years and nine months. It went down, in COVID, the age expectancy went down. But really what we're talking about is serving folk generally in their late fifties on. And sometimes that's a long on too.
Marcus Goodyear:So we have the Echoes magazine, the median age is 51. So in one sense, this conversation is right at our target. We have a second group of readers who are in their twenties. So the median age of 51, they're gonna pick up this conversation no problem. Why would those 20 year olds be interested in this?
Marcus Goodyear:How is it relevant to them?
Mark D Roberts:Yeah, great, great question. I love it. So for a number of reasons, I mean, one and the most obvious would be many of those 20 year olds are gonna have parents and or grandparents the third of life. People they really love and care about. And learning about how those folks can flourish and how one can live a healthy and good life, that's gonna matter.
Mark D Roberts:But here's the other thing. So much of what we've discovered about what helps us flourish in the third third of life are things that if we began them earlier, it would have made a huge difference. Now the most obvious when people would think, Oh yeah, kind of like health. Yeah, kinda like health. If you eat well and get exercise when you're younger, odds are you're gonna be healthier when you're older.
Mark D Roberts:But as it turns out, there actually are other sort of basic practices and disciplines of life that if we start early, we will in all likelihood have a longer and a better life. And I'll give just the most amazing example. So there is this study called, it used to be called the grant study. Now it's a Harvard study of adult development. And they have studied people.
Mark D Roberts:They started in the late 1930s and followed people for a lifetime, basically asking the question, what enables people to live well? And they did surveys and medical tests and followed these people throughout their lives. Think all of them are now dead actually, because that was a long time ago. And he says, what did we find helps us live best and live longer and better? And he said, you know, it's not working harder.
Mark D Roberts:It's not making more money. It's not even having better cholesterol and that sort of thing. Most important Thank goodness. Yes. The most important contributor to living well at age 80 is the quality of our relationships at age 50 and younger.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Wow.
Mark D Roberts:Now, that, yes. Wow. And, know, folk in their twenties, folk in their teens for that matter. I mean, if we if we really believe that, wait, the quality of my relationships is gonna be the most important contributor to my living long and living well in all seasons of life, well, then I think I I I want to start investing in and building really good and healthy relationships and communities.
Camille Hall-Ortega:I love this. I told my mom, I have two young kids. So I have a a six year old little boy and I have a three and a half year old little girl. And my mom watches my kids when they're not in school. And I tell my parents, you're welcome.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Because I'm seeing studies come out that say, this is making you happier, and this is gonna make you live longer. And even similarly, I've seen things where they're telling older folks, Having a dog that you have a relationship with is gonna make you live a longer, healthier life. And so I'm imagining that people are picking up on these things. Are you seeing some of that in your work?
Mark D Roberts:Oh, absolutely. And people resonate with it, but it's a real problem. So a few years back, the surgeon general came out with this major report on loneliness and isolation in The United States. And this what a huge problem it is, especially for older adults. And again, think, well, why would that be?
Mark D Roberts:Well, many older adults say lose a spouse. So all of a sudden they're living alone or they're you know, and the cost of loneliness and isolation to our physical health, not to mention just our mental health and well-being. Our physical health is huge. So the surgeon general says, experiencing pretty extreme loneliness and isolation, the way millions and millions of Americans do, is for your health the equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Marcus Goodyear:So Mark, I have a practical question for you. First of all, I should confess that I just turned 51, so I'm very close to entering the Oh,
Mark D Roberts:you are.
Marcus Goodyear:This is all super top of mind for me. I did a couple of things when I was 50 to sort of prove to myself that, you know, whatever, that I was aging well. Although I do find that language creeping in thinking about that I'm aging, that I I feel a little older for the Mhmm. Probably the first time in my life actually. Things are certain things that used to be very easier are just a little bit harder.
Marcus Goodyear:But my kids don't live where I where I live. So I don't have a situation like Camille where if I want to be around my grandkids, they're just gonna be here, which means my wife and I are facing the question of moving. And I know that you moved in your third, third I think twice because you were probably 50 when you made came to Lady Lodge.
Mark D Roberts:Yes.
Marcus Goodyear:And I'm curious moving essentially cuts off some of those relationships. Have to start them over. How do you do that well? Especially given that so many older adults retire and then move somewhere and sever their relationships.
Mark D Roberts:Great question, and the way you're framing it is great. I mean, And part of the answer to your question is, well, there's no one answer to that. People are different and will make different choices, but what you're pointing at. Here's what happens, not infrequently, people leave their colder city they've lived in or town they've lived in for 30, They 40 move to someplace that's warm. It's great, the warmth and the activities and all that sort of thing, but they have lost all of their core and key relationships, that really costs them and they feel it.
Mark D Roberts:And some people move home even to the cold. Now some who are able will split their year between warm and cold and that sort of thing. But the point is there is a significant cost to moving from your cold place where you've lived your whole life to warm place. Now there may be advantages too. Okay, that's one thing.
Mark D Roberts:Here's another thing that sometimes happens. So parents will leave parents, grandparents will again move away from everything they've known, their church, their friends, their activities, jobs, and they'll move to be close to the grandchildren. And sometimes that's great. And sometimes it's not so good that that's too much relationship and they're totally cut off. And then sometimes the children and grandchildren get a job switch and they move.
Mark D Roberts:So now all of a sudden you've moved from all of your core relationships throughout your whole life, and now you're living all by yourself in a brand new place and you don't know anybody. As we think about where we're going to live in the latter seasons of life. There are so many questions. Most Americans want to live in their home. They wanna stay where they are.
Mark D Roberts:There's some real benefits to that, but sometimes that contributes to the loneliness and isolation. Sometimes our homes are not very well suited for us when we're older, maybe they're not equipped. And so again, lots of issues. It's partly the work we're doing is to help people think about these things in a way that perhaps they haven't thought about before.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Really interesting. We have, on previous episodes, discussed the importance of community and different ways to kind of achieve community in your life, have community in your life. How have you seen spiritual life, faith, church come into play, especially for folks in their third third?
Mark D Roberts:I'm impressed at churches that are working on helping multigenerational relationships happen. And I think for example, of Highland Park Presbyterian Church down in Dallas, I have many friends there and know them well. And they have done a lot of different things to try and help folk who are older, be with folk who are younger, but you don't exactly walk up to a stranger on Sunday morning and say, Hey, young person, do you wanna hang out? And so I think churches can provide the context in which this can happen, but then what needs to happen, there are different ways to help facilitate this and advance it.
Marcus Goodyear:And Mark, you've also talked in your Third Third materials about looking for new narratives of aging. We've talked about a few of those, and that's in contrast to what you have understood to be damaging narratives about aging, damaging cultural messages. So I'm curious, I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about some of the, you at the risk of being negative, some of the more damaging things people in our culture believe about aging and how you respond to that and how you find alternatives.
Mark D Roberts:Well, ironically, the first negative narrative I would mention is the one that a lot of folks think is the great narrative. That is sort of you retire and now it's all for you. It's all about you. And you'll find this language in promoting of senior adult communities and other things. It's like, you've worked hard, you gave, you raised your children.
Mark D Roberts:It was all for others. Now it's all for you. And I mean, people are living into that narrative, maybe at 60 years old, they might have twenty five, thirty, or even more years of life left. And all of a sudden, it's all for you.
Marcus Goodyear:And
Mark D Roberts:so that can at first feel like, wow, this is a real positive narrative. I get to just live for myself. But from a Christian point of view, we'd say, well, that's not quite what God has called us to. But there's also a lot of research that says people who just live for themselves often do not flourish because there is something in us. I mean, we were created and called to be people who serve and care for others.
Mark D Roberts:And the older adults who really do well are not just living for themselves, but they've found ways to live for others. The second big narrative is you really have outlived your usefulness and your fruitfulness. It's like you've you'll hear this a lot often in association with whoever happens to be president. Now that we've had older folk on both parties, it isn't even partisan thing anymore, but it's like, Oh, you've had your chance, you don't have much to contribute anymore. And that's a very common negative narrative.
Mark D Roberts:One that's associated with that is, and you're basically gonna drag down our whole society and economy. You're not contributing. You sometimes hear the language, it's very common. They'll talk about the growth of older adults, the number of older adults as a silver tsunami. In other words, silver as in silver hair,
Marcus Goodyear:my mind.
Mark D Roberts:Tsunami as in this large thing that's gonna wipe us out. So there are all these narratives, either the one that says, Hey, it's all for you. Or the one that says, And by the way, you really don't have anything much to contribute anyway. And as a matter of fact, you and all your people are gonna really hurt us and even potentially wipe us out. And the problem is that a lot of older, it's not only that younger people might think that, and that's not a good thing, but many who are older actually internalize that.
Mark D Roberts:And then when you think about it, it begins to make a little sense because you think, well, if I just think, getting old is terrible and yeah, I'm gonna be sick and it's gonna be awful, maybe I won't go to the doctor. Or yeah, I'm old, I can't contribute anymore. I got nothing to give. So I don't give. The things that help us to live well and live longer, I stopped doing because I said, Well, I'm old.
Mark D Roberts:Anyway, stunning. But the challenge then for for all of us and again, this starts when you're younger. How do you think about being older? Can we reframe this in a way that is both more truthful, but also is gonna be more helpful? Marcus, how old were you when you were hired at lady or in
Marcus Goodyear:the I was 31. Yeah. Okay. 35.
Mark D Roberts:You're this 31 year old person working with what? 78 year old Howard Butt?
Marcus Goodyear:Yeah. Yeah.
Mark D Roberts:Okay. If you had any sort of prejudice about older people not being creative, not having vision, not having energy, not having mission, I mean, because you have that relationship, you would say, Oh, that's not it. In fact, you are experiencing someone of, who is old, living with tremendous vitality and contribution. That sort of thing, that can really change the way we think about aging in general and the way we envision our own lives.
Camille Hall-Ortega:That's huge, Mark. And it's it's perfect because we're very curious about what it looks like to relate well across generations.
Marcus Goodyear:Yes.
Camille Hall-Ortega:And so for even for us. So for me, I'm a millennial and Marcus is Gen X. And of course, my parents are boomers. And so what we see quite often is that although perhaps in faith communities, there is, of course, this knowledge that we're meant to be treating the elderly with respect for their wisdom and thus and such. There's often sort of a little bit of an eye roll of like, those guys can't get it.
Camille Hall-Ortega:These guys from this generation, they just don't get it. And even even that goes the opposite direction too, where kind of all of us can be looking at Gen Alpha and Gen Z going, oh my goodness, please, enough with all of all of whatever you're doing. What do you see as sort of important practical steps for treating each other with respect among the generations?
Mark D Roberts:Oh, I love that question. And, you know so I'm a boomer. So, you know, there's okay boomer. Yeah. I get it.
Mark D Roberts:I don't get
Marcus Goodyear:it anymore. You don't hear it as often.
Mark D Roberts:No. You don't as much. But it's such a great question because one of the things that used to be true in our world, but in our country was that there was a fair amount of intergenerational relationship. People lived in smaller towns, families lived together. Increasingly that is less true.
Mark D Roberts:And part of what that means is a lot of times we don't know people outside of our own cohort, our own people, the folk we hang out with. And when you don't know people, it's really easy to stereotype or to have prejudice or you see the extremes. And of course, the media and especially social media are gonna point out the extremes of whatever it is. And so, it'd be easy for a person of my age to look down on a Gen X or a millennial and say, look at though, they don't wanna work and they're lazy. They're only thinking about their own well-being.
Mark D Roberts:They're on their phones all the time, etcetera, etcetera. But when you really get to know somebody, those kinds of stereotypes turn out not to be accurate. And one of the things we desperately need in our world, and in the church, I think the church could be a great place for this, is to actually get to know people who are not like I am. By the way, we could obviously be having this conversation about other things, about race other ways. Some of us have been greatly blessed to have those kinds of intergenerational relationships.
Mark D Roberts:So in my case, when I started working with Howard Budd and knowing him, I was 50, so I was older, but I grew up very close to my mom's father, my grandfather. I would say he was really my best friend in life. And I didn't think of it at the time, but that was profoundly shaping my view of what it is to be older.
Camille Hall-Ortega:I love the notion of it being reciprocal because we're seeing that in studies as well, That it's not one-sided, that these intergenerational relationships really are beneficial for both sides, whether it's mentor, whether it's actual familial relationships, whether it's seeking community in in your church. I I love I think about a a story that something you said sparked is that when my parents first got married, my dad's mother less than a year into their marriage, my dad's mother was tragically killed in a car accident. And so for us growing up, you know, we didn't have that relationship. My other grandmother lived in Memphis, Tennessee, so she was and we're in Texas. So we didn't have that.
Camille Hall-Ortega:And so my dad's best friend, his mother called my dad in, and she said, you're my son now. She said, my kids are your brothers and your sisters,
Marcus Goodyear:and
Camille Hall-Ortega:your kids can call me grandma. In the communication and psychology research, they sometimes call this fictive kin. But so we grew up with these important fictive kin relationships, intergenerational, where we were able to call my dad's best friend's mother, Granny, and call her kids Yeah. Uncle and aunt. And just because they weren't actual familial relationships, they were deeply formative for us.
Mark D Roberts:I love that. That's great.
Marcus Goodyear:Yeah. I have the same story, Camille. My mom was adopted, and my the only grandparents I ever really knew were her foster parents. She wasn't adopted. She was fostered.
Marcus Goodyear:And I called them grandpa. I called them grandma. My grandma's still alive. Yeah. So I've never thought of calling that a fictive relationship.
Marcus Goodyear:That's really interesting. All of this talk about generational healing and the institution of the church and the institution of towns, it reminds me of Howard Butt Jr, who we've been talking about a lot. He's been behind a lot of this conversation much more so than than our normal podcast episodes. Yeah. I think partially Mark because you know you came on and we both worked for him.
Marcus Goodyear:But we have a clip. This is from 2009. He was 81 when he gave this clip. He was at Lady Lodge and this is I think the last time he spoke at Lady Lodge and this is actually the end of the talk. So he's giving this talk, he's talking about generational healing and its connection to institutional healing at Lady Lodge and at the end he segues into a poem and the kind of basically the very last thing he ever said at Lady Lodge officially is this to quote this poem by Christina Rossetti.
Marcus Goodyear:So you'll hear his voice change a bit as he starts reciting the poem. But I'd love to play this for you, Mark, and just get your get your take.
Howard Butt Jr:Our greatest earthly need is generational healing. Why do I say that generational healing is crucial? Generational healing offers us institutional peace. We must aspire to relationships of love with our parents and our children. I am an unapologetic institutionalist.
Howard Butt Jr:I believe in institutions. I'm sure that's part of the reason I have I spent my life in two institutions, the H. E. Butt Grocery Company, the H. E.
Howard Butt Jr:Butt Foundation. Anyone who wants to think institutionally is going to go against the culture of our society. Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day from born tonight, my friend?
Camille Hall-Ortega:Love to get your thoughts on on that clip, Mark.
Mark D Roberts:I'm honestly a little choked up because Howard meant the world to me. He was about the age of my dad and my dad died at a fairly young age. And so along the way, the Lord put men in my life who were like a father. And he was very much like a father to me. And he was also one from whom I learned so much about all kinds of things.
Mark D Roberts:And it was so interesting. I mean, here he is. So Marcus said he's what, 81. Yeah. When he started out and his initial sort of influence was not talking about institutions and intergenerational healing.
Mark D Roberts:He was about the ministry of the laity, we had Laity Lodge. He was about faith work and the integration of your faith work, the high calling of your daily work. And he never lost those deep commitments, but he was the kind of person who was just living and learning and new things. And so by the end of his life, there are all these new things that he cares about, is speaking about, learning about, growing about. And one of them being the intergenerational healing and recognizing that for there to be the quality of relationships that we seek in family and in other institutions, right?
Mark D Roberts:He said that, yes, we need to understand each other and we need to discover who we are, but there's also, there's healing that needs to happen. Howard was pretty open about some of the challenges he experienced from his own father and needing to come to a place of forgiveness and acceptance. Families are the greatest, and it's also where we do some of the greatest harm to each other. And so this notion of intergenerational healing, but also his concern for institutions. I mean, language about that came rather late.
Mark D Roberts:And I just think here's a man who in his late seventies and early eighties is, as I said, learning, growing, thinking creatively, trying new ideas, giving of himself to others, people like me and others whom he mentored, but a gift.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Marcus, I'm really curious your thoughts on this audio as well, especially just because it's Howard and his last talk at Lady Lodge and yeah.
Marcus Goodyear:Yeah. Well, I mean, like Mark, it I get a little choked up. He was he was incredibly influential in my life. And in a in a lot of ways, he really helped me break away from some dysfunctional things in my life that I had I just didn't even realize were problems and he was so gentle about it and so caring and I was was a little bit of a handful in my thirties and he never got rid of me. I'm still here.
Marcus Goodyear:So that's part of what's underneath all of that as I'm listening. The ideas of institutional renewal come from several different places but he was especially fixated on a thinker named Hugh Heclo at the end. And I think that's what he was actually referencing in that talk. And just this idea that in order for society to flourish we need to believe in each other and we need to trust each other. And Howard Howard would talk about institutions like they were individuals.
Marcus Goodyear:And so the same kinds of language he would apply to individual renewal and kind of relationships between two people, he would think about the relationships between two institutions or the relationship between the person in the institution and the institution itself. Like my relationship to the foundation or my relationship to Kerrville or Kerrville's relationship to the foundation. And he was just really, he was really a genius. And I wouldn't have had access to any of that if I hadn't been able to work with him.
Mark D Roberts:You know, Marcus, you mentioned thinking institutionally, was Hugh Heclo's book, which Howard read, and it was very influential So for here's the way Howard approached things. He read the book, we worked on the ideas, but then the relational part of him says to me, Well, you have to go meet him. And it's like, Well, Roe, he's a professor. No, you have to meet him. And so I and one other organization reached out and he was in fact glad to meet with us.
Mark D Roberts:And we met with him in his home and he was a delightful man. Turned out, he's also a person of faith and there was this sweet thing. So it's institutional in the broader sense, and it was deeply profoundly relational in a very personal sense and everything in between. That's pretty amazing.
Camille Hall-Ortega:But I love that because that's just highlighting how Howard knew the importance of relationship. It just harkens back to what you were speaking about before, Mark, that there is, of course, sometimes difficulty when we go, Oh, this person really doesn't get it, or they're so much older, they're so much younger. But when we take the time to be intentional about getting to know others, it is so often hugely impactful and fruitful. So I just love that notion.
Marcus Goodyear:Mark, are you ready to say you love being old? Oh.
Mark D Roberts:You know, it's so interesting because I think about that. I can't say it as unapologetically as Betty did, and she owned in her talk, there's some hard things about being old. And I'm still, you know, the physical things come up that you didn't have when you were younger. It's harder to sleep often when you get older, these things are like, oh man. And that's why a lot of people will say, getting older and easier, it's a drag being older.
Mark D Roberts:People will complain about it. The the thing that that Betty first alerted me to and now I am much more attentive to is some of the amazing gifts of being older. When I turned 65, I had a very unexpected it was my birthday. Get up in the morning and I found myself I was really down. I was thinking like most of my life is over and I wasn't expecting this.
Mark D Roberts:I'm not usually that kind of person. And I was really like, oh man. So I went down and I sat down to do my devotions. And it was one of those times in life where it was like God really spoke to me. And what God said to me is read Psalm 103.
Mark D Roberts:Well, some of you would know Psalm 103 is this amazing sort of chronicle of the wonderful ways that God has blessed and ministered to the psalmist. And so I start out reading it and it's, Bless the Lord, all my soul, all that in me, bless his holy name. Don't forget all his benefits, Who forgives all your iniquity. I started thinking of the ways God has forgiven me when I really messed up. Who heals all your diseases.
Mark D Roberts:I'd been he I almost died of a Rocky Mountain spotted fever and the Lord healed me. I remember. Who redeems your life from the pit and on and on. And as I I started reflecting on this, I mean, literally, I was just weeping with gratitude for how rich my life was and how much God had blessed me.
Marcus Goodyear:To be fair, I don't think you're, I don't know if you fully qualify as old yet, but I'm throwing the question back at you.
Mark D Roberts:I'm 68 and I have all white hair. So that's
Marcus Goodyear:I think, yeah, 75, I think is like the beginning of old maybe.
Mark D Roberts:It's so funny because when you ask people, generally, are all these surveys. Younger people tend to think old is like 55 and 60. By the time you're in your seventies, you ask people in their seventies, well, what is old? It'll be like 85 and 90. We're always putting it off.
Camille Hall-Ortega:Push it back a little.
Marcus Goodyear:I just wanna make sure, you know, I don't think you're old, but
Mark D Roberts:But I wanna get to the point and I think we would want to get to the point in our culture and in our world where it wouldn't even be thought of as a bad thing to be old. But that was part of the thing about Betty. I love being old. She wasn't embarrassed. She said, I'm old.
Mark D Roberts:And I think many of us can think, well, it isn't good to be old. And I'm thinking, well, wouldn't it be great if we could say, yeah, it is great to be old, partly because the only alternative is, well, you didn't live that long.
Marcus Goodyear:Right.
Mark D Roberts:And come to cherish and be grateful for the gifts that go with being older. And that's what I'm trying to live into. And sometimes I can, sometimes not as much.
Marcus Goodyear:Oh, I love it. I love it. I think that's a great place to
Camille Hall-Ortega:end. Yes.
Marcus Goodyear:Mark, thank you so much for being with us. This is the Echoes Podcast. It's written and produced by Camille Hol Ortega, Rob Stinnett, and me, Marcus Goodyear. It's edited by Rob Stinnett and Kim Stone. Our executive producers are David Rogers and Patton Dodd.
Marcus Goodyear:Special thanks to our guest today, Mark D. Roberts. Mark, do you do you get Echoes magazine?
Mark D Roberts:I I do get Echoes magazine. I always read Echoes magazine.
Marcus Goodyear:That is fantastic. And if you're listening to this podcast, you should get it too because it's free. Go to echosmagazine.org to subscribe. And I just say
Mark D Roberts:it has really great stories in it. Yes. Even if you don't know anything about the foundation, worth any of that. The stories are really very engaging and moving and wonderful. So get it because it's free and there's some great stories.
Marcus Goodyear:That's right. You can find a link in our show notes. Thank you, Mark. The Echoes Podcast and Echoes Magazine are both productions of the HEB Foundation. You can learn more about our vision and mission at hebfdn.org.