Growing old gracefully?

It seems impossible to me that I’ll turn 60 next year. Despite all the evidence that confirms it (physical appearance, a growing list of medications, the occasional confusion of my wife’s and daughter’s names, losing things or forgetting where they are, uncertainty about how many cats we have: that sort of thing), I’m amazed.

I’ve been reading Gordon Rupp’s amusing and touching book, The Sixty Plus and Other Sermons, published way back in 1978. Dr. Rupp’s last year as principal of Wesley House seminary (1973-4) was my first year as a student there. I thought he was about a million years old, very wise and very funny. I suppose two out of three isn’t bad: he was, in fact, 63 when we first met, within hailing distance from where I now stand. Things look different from a 21 year old’s perspective.

A more recent book about aging is Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years. She points out how many more old people are alive now in the USA than in 1900: 10% of the population and climbing, rather than 4%.  And that fact, helped by the title of her book, impressed the (for my sort of religious person) obvious upon me: not only is life one of God’s graces, but (let’s not be too PC) old(er) age is also a grace. In the broad scheme of things, life is given to few. And length of days is given to even fewer.

How then do we approach older age as grace, as a gift?

As I’ve contemplated the gift of, for example, not hearing as acutely as once I did (why do students mumble more than they used to?), I’ve fastened on four things to help me get through the twilight zone, gracefully (or as gracefully as I can manage).

First, better believe the Ancient Greek who said: ‘Know Thyself’. Whatever this gnomic utterance means, I choose to accept as true that it tells us to be realistic about ourselves. I was recently amused to read some wry prayers based on the Myers-Brigg personality test, particularly the one based on my own personality: ‘Lord, help me be less independent, but let me do it my way’. This sentiment isn’t perhaps the best compass with which to chart the golden years! I’ve thought, ruefully: what am I going to do as the coming years unravel? Alongside that, there’s the chilling thought: what has been the point of all that I’ve done? Is there any sum of its parts?

Which leads me to the second thing: defining yourself just by what you do is, at least in my case, to court depression and turn joy into anxiety. So don’t just define yourself by what you do. When I embarked upon this sabbatical, I was fretful about doing nothing. Now I’m discovering how long it takes to do nothing. I’ve supped and fed with colleagues, talked for the first time in ages to old friends, looked at the fall leaves with a kind of wonder (and made a mental note to pay Naomi to clear them up, post-wonder), read books I’d long meant to, gone on a church tour of bits of Chicago with my wife Udho and a pile of people who were, gratifyingly, mostly even more aged than I. There’s more to me than being a professor, I discover. And I like some of that ‘more to me.’

I am somewhat cynical about clichés, so am embarrassed to tell you that my third means of coping with my bad back, etc., is as clichéd a cliché as you will find: count your blessings. I have the time to do so. I talk with my daughter Naomi more, and to her boyfriend. Now that the cats have understood that I’m home more than usual, they climb all over me and, although I moan about it, I’m entranced and moved by the non-verbal (well, Ianto talks for Illinois, but not in English) communication and affection between master and human. And I find myself looking at Udho as we watch television of an evening, or read, and am so thankful.

Moving on to the last point: I have more time to …: well, I’m not sure quite what it is that I’m doing. I would use the word ‘pray’, except that I’ve never been excellent at doing what that word conjures up in the minds of many people. I love the aside in Luke’s gospel when he notes that Jesus’s ‘mother kept all these sayings in her heart.’ I look at people and things more than I did, keep them in my heart, and ponder them, acknowledging mystery and hope. I’ve never been much of a fellow for long-winded extempore prayers. We should approach mystery, and let it approach us, with care and wonder and meekness. For some reason, I’ve recently been much stirred by Cardinal Newman’s prayer:

Oh Lord
support us all day long
of this troublous life until
the shades lengthen and
the busy world is hushed
the fever of life is over and
our work is done

Then Lord in thy great mercy
grant us safe lodging a holy
rest and peace at last, through
Christ Our Lord. Amen

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