This can be a frightening thought. It's certainly a socially incorrect one. Society frowns on talk of getting old. We don't respect the thought of anyone being a wise elder, except maybe for "elder statesmen" and there are precious few of those who get or deserve respect. And yet those of us who acknowledge to ourselves that we're finally "old" know that there are perks to this gig.
You ARE wiser and mellower. Able to put temptations and traumas into perspective because temptations pass and traumas pass too unless you die from them, and eventually everyone does, sooner or later. You've seen Springs and Winters come and go and know that one always gives place to the other; you've seen enough people birthed and buried that you've got the reality of the life cycle down pat, how precious it is, how fleeting. That life is both pain and promise following each other and often interwoven.
You'd like to shake your younger self and hiss "Slow down! It all goes by faster than you think!" Now every day, rain or shine, has its own grace and charm because you're still "above ground" to appreciate it, and there's nothing you can do with life except enjoy it, or live through it until, as the psalmist says, we receive joy to balance our affliction. Each new day is an occasion for gratitude: "Dear God, thanks for this beautiful life, and forgive me if I don't love it enough." Or - "forgive me if I don't live it enough!" Because sometimes arthritis slows us down and makes us grumpy. (Thank God for Naproxen!)
Faith makes getting older an easier proposition. I think of that old man and woman, Abraham and Sarah, being asked by God to pull up stakes and take off with their family on an unscheduled trip to a far-off and unknown Promised Land: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go." (from Hebrews 11.) We know that the journey of old age leads all of us to the same place: death, and receiving Heaven - life with God - as our inheritance. But God knows that, honestly, we don't want to go and the way is a dark unknown and often painful valley of the shadow of death. Faith buoys us up because we know and trust the One Who goes with us and wants to gift us with eternal life.
Faith makes it easier for us to "obey" the process of getting old and fragile. We can surrender to the inevitable instead of fighting it, praying the journey instead of playing as if we weren't on it. The whole process of aging, and later dying, involves denial, anger, bargaining, fear, and finally acceptance. We have been a bud, our petals have opened, we've come to full bloom, and now we're finally beginning to fade as our petals drop to the waiting earth. Yet - like Abraham and Sarah, who rejoiced at the unexpected birth of their son Isaac, we not only go to receive an inheritance, we have faith that we will leave an inheritance behind.
I can think with love of my family and extended family whom I have wrapped in love, and who have loved me. The people I have loved and who have loved me at various schools and places of work and ministry. I think of my Facebook and Weebly blog friends, whom I've made in my old age. I can think of various projects I've been a part of that have enriched others' lives. All of us have been part of the lives of people, places, works, ministries, and creative undertakings that have supported, encouraged, and healed us and countless others.
These are the treasures of our hearts, the inheritance we leave behind to be leaven in this world. Old age is a time to look back with gratitude on the beauty of our lives, those people and experiences that have left eternal flames of love and acceptance in us to warm our hearts. These are the treasures of our hearts that have formed us and prepared us for our final journeys home to God. These are the people, events, and places which stand as testimony to our being the Face and Hands and Heart of God in and for this world.
The greatest gift in our lives, the greatest Flame of Love in our hearts, is God. The greatest journey we make in our lives is the inner journey of discovering that God is not just "somewhere out there" but that God also lives within us. God is both without and within, our Creator Who is totally Other and thus unknowable, yet also the One Who lives within each one of us, loving us each individually, supporting us, guiding us, wanting to be in relationship with us. We are in this world because God personally chose for us to be in it. We will go home to God when God decides that our souls are in full flower.
Praying our way home means "Aha! I'm getting older. It's time for me to be reading the Bible, reading spiritual books, going to Church, just being quiet with God. Now I have more time to really think about my life and to realize all the ways that God has been with me making a right path for me. Carrying me when I was weak. Lifting me up when I've fallen. Being Light in my darkness. God has always been with me and will always be with me - right to the end when I close my eyes on this world and open them to the next."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest who was a French paleontologist and theologian, wrote a prayer asking for grace to age well. I'll close my reflection on aging with faith with his words:
When the signs of age begin to
mark my body
(and still more when they touch
my mind);
when the ill that is to diminish
me or carry me off
strikes from without or is born
within me;
when the painful moment comes
in which I suddenly awaken
to the fact that I am ill or growing
old;
and above all at that last moment
when I feel I am losing hold of
myself
and am absolutely passive within
the hands
of the great unknown forces that
have formed me;
in all those dark moments, O God,
grant that I may understand that
it is you
(provided only my faith is strong
enough)
who are painfully parting the
fibers of my being
in order to penetrate to the very
marrow
of my substance and bear me
away within yourself.