This morning is the first in our November series of services on life stages, an attempt to honor the different gifts each stage has to offer. Together let us acknowledge the reality that in our stratified society, a religious community provides one of the last opportunities for the ages to mix, mingle, learn from and be enriched by one another.
Brrrrrrrrring. "Oh, is that you again, Agnes? One more thing? (Pause.) You bet." Huh! (Shrug, hang up.) Goodbye.
That was Agnes, one of the wise elders in the Princeton congregation when I was a young wife, mother of two and active on the Membership Committee. Agnes never announced who she was, nor did she say goodbye. She zeroed in on the present matter of importance: welcoming newcomers, integrating those who had been around for a while, caring for anyone in need. She didn't bother with small artifacts of the social contract. Agnes wore a patch over the eye she lost in a near-fatal car accident. She did the cooking, cleaning and ironing at home and had come to terms with living in the permanently unfinished house that her engineer and perfectionist husband could never complete. She devoted her life to caring for her immediate and extended family and to serving and improving the church she loved so well.
Over time, Agnes and Rene became increasingly incapacitated; neighbors, friends and church members picked up first one, then another life chore, enabling them to remain in their home. But a visit there was always a treat: They taught me about ferns; Rene introduced me to "minimalist" music. (I still don't like it, but at least I know what it is.) Together we cut evergreen boughs for use in the three-part Christmas hanging-of-the- greens service. A cup of tea or a lunch of healthy soup and good bread was always proffered, rounding out the visit that was intended to help them by enriching and delighting me and my family.
Agnes and Rene had considered their mortality and shared with me on a number of occasions their understandings and expectations about death. They left clear instructions for their children and for the church to follow when they died. These words of George Bernard Shaw could just as easily have been attributed to Agnes:
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.
Aging in our society is seldom heralded with such heroic phrases. In our youth- worshipping culture, age is something to be avoided at all costs. The messages include: Get your face lifted, your tummy tucked, your sexual prowess reinvigorated, wear the clothes of a teenager. Or conversely: Go away where we cannot see you; amuse yourself, entertain yourself, and stay out of the business of running the world (translated: family, business, community).
Garrison Keillor writes: "Nature is relentless; it programs degeneration into our DNA. Even if you're positive-thinking, hopped up on Viagra, and your face has been lifted and stapled to make you look like a feral woodchuck, nonetheless one day you'll look like something from the lost lagoon and have the sex drive of a smoked salmon. Nature doesn't care about your golden years; it's aiming for turnover."
Elders are the butt of stand-up comedians' one-liners:
You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoes and wonder what else you can do while you're down there. Or ...
You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you got from a roller coaster. And ...
Perhaps you know why women over 50 don't have babies: They would put them somewhere and forget where they left them.
No stereotype is wholly without elements of truth, however. So there are perilous down sides of aging. Body parts wear out. Memory lapses occur with greater frequency. Aches and pains increase; physical ability and agility decrease. Accelerating technology makes our knowledge obsolete. Friends, family members and life partners die. Independence is threatened or restricted. Energy levels decline; the senses of sight and hearing diminish. Elders can feel marginalized, useless, and without respect. The end of life is near.
These one-liners present an elder's perspective:
Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
I finally got my head together, and my body fell apart.
It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
We know much about the hardships and losses of aging. What we may not know as much about are the opportunities, challenges and tasks of aging. We may not recognize some of the special gifts that aging -- and our elders -- have to offer.
To help prepare for this sermon, I consulted with many of the wise elders in our congregation. Nine wise elders gathered last week in Isabel Arnsten's home to share their learnings, challenges, concerns, joys and faith. The average age was 80.4. Several others shared their wisdom with me in person, with books, by phone and in writing: Isabelle Arnsten, Erna and Charlie Hoover, Bob Burns, Phyllis Kingsbury, Harriet Kavanagh, Virginia Kent, Dorit Noether, Ruth Sprague, Marie Strahan, Rita Mears, Dick and Norma Wagner, Virginia Dearborn.
So what are some of the gifts of eldering? Some of these gifts are personal, the benefits of
withdrawing or retiring from the midlife preoccupation with earning a living and creating
a family. Our friends tell us they have experienced:
* Freedom from the pressures of work, searching for work and building a career.
* Satisfaction in smaller tasks.
* Freedom from the need to impress anyone.
* Being respected just for who you are -- the graceful offer of a seat on a bus, or a
highway assist, just because her white hair reminded the young man he wouldn't have
wanted his mother to be stuck without assistance.
What are the gifts of eldering? The gifts of gratitude that is the key to happiness:
* Time.
* Time to reflect.
* Time to enjoy poetry, music, inspiring literature, theater.
* Having fewer needs.
* Valuing the present.
* Children and grandchildren and being grandparents.
* Life-long relationships.
What are some of the learned gifts? The gifts of acceptance, the key to serenity:
* A sense of humor.
* Cultivating adaptability.
* Watching people survive insurmountable health problems and retain their zest for
living.
* Appreciation for life.
* Appreciation of nature's beauty.
* Anticipation of spring.
There are also life-learnings and gifts to be shared. Our wise elders told me: "We've learned that life is unfair, that we are free to risk disapproval, that we have the ability to adapt to what is, and that work does not equal life. We have learned ways of problem- solving, group process skills, and how to deal with people that transcend technological advances. We have learned how to listen. We have gained invaluable perspective from life experiences and overcoming hurdles; we don't give up. We demonstrate in our lives faithfulness, loyalty and friendship. We want to help others. And we want to move society in the right direction."
They told me they would like to be mentors to younger people and to provide models. They have gained the perspective to help people see problems as adventures. So as long as they have good health and physical energy, there is a world of contributions that elders can make. Will the community be wise enough to call upon them?
With a growing population of vigorous elders, they are called to meet society's challenges. In Maggie Kuhn's words, "Older people are not just card-carrying members of Leisure World and midafternoon nap-takers. We are tribal elders, with an ongoing responsibility for safeguarding the tribe's survival and protecting the health of the planet. To this, we must become society's futurists, testing out new instruments, technologies, ideas, and styles of living. We have the freedom to do so, and we have nothing to lose."
Kuhn calls upon elders to be Mentors, Mediators, Monitors, Mobilizers and Motivators.
At the risk of surely forgetting someone, I'll name people in our own congregation who
fill these roles:
Mentors to teach the young: Don Kent, Vic Rosenberg, John Foord, Dick
Wagner.
Mediators resolving conflict: Virginia Dearborn.
Monitors and watchdogs of public bodies: Rosemarye Levine, and my friend
Tony from Princeton who sits in all the New Jersey Assembly sessions so they know that
citizens care.
Mobilizers of social change: May Daniels urging us to become a Welcoming
Congregation, Art Hausker arranging bus riders to the Washington peace
demonstration.
Motivators of society toward the public good: Janet Foord, Susan Nanney, Peter
and Ellen Hay.
All of this is in the realm of doing. There is a different and parallel challenge for aging called spiritual eldering. Spiritual eldering is from another realm, the realm of being. Pierre Tailhard de Chardin shared a "vision of embracing the diminishments of age through faith" and lifted up an "ideal for elderhood equivalent to a worldly mysticism." For de Chardin, "the diminishments themselves can assist us in making the radical sacrifice of egoism."
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi refers to the life instinct (libido) and the death instinct (thanatos), both at work in our psyches, and he describes a shift from one to the other as we age. He writes that "there is a natural, inborn reflex in human consciousness that seeks quiescence as a complement to the outgoing energies that anchor us in the everyday world. Just as the centrifugal energies of the psyche whirl us into tempests of outer activity, so complementary centripetal energies urge us inward toward stillness and equipoise."
What does this mean for you and me? It means there is a natural process of aging, in the move from growing, building, procreating, doing, toward a less active, more spiritual presence of being. In his book Aging as a Spiritual Journey, Eugene C. Bianchi explains it this way: "In this process the elder experiences detachment from possessive relationships to things and a broader attachment to people. He or she becomes less a consumer, and more a sharer of material and spiritual resources..."
"A new picture of aging derives from a focus on an expansion of awareness, balancing our physical diminishment in old age with brain-mind development that opens up greater intelligence and new skills. We have the possibility of becoming enlightened sages."
"The interior life becomes, in part, a preparation for contributing the authentic wisdom of age to the central concerns of communities and nations." "The elderly, therefore, have the special role of cherishing life itself for its own intrinsic meaning."
So how do we become worldly mystics and enlightened sages? How do we arrive at authentic wisdom? These are the spiritual tasks of eldering. This is interior work and it comes just when the body tells us to slow down. There is a readiness, if we allow it, and there are tools to assist in the process. Meditation is one and harvesting is another.
Meditation as a spiritual practice that was once reserved for clerics and cloistered holy persons, native shamans or Eastern sages striving for nirvana. My private theory is that there was a great deal of meditation that occurred without being named as such in the daily round of tasks we have now given over to machines. What could be more meditative than the rhythmic kneading of bread, sawing wood, hoeing potatoes, spinning thread, churning butter, chopping wood and long walks to store, church or school? So, with the loss of our homegrown meditations and the spread of interfaith knowledge, there is a hunger for and knowledge of a wide range of meditative techniques. Whatever form one chooses, the goal is to center, to shut down the outside clatter and interior chatter, to slow the pulse, to open the mind, to connect spirit to spirit with the mysterious Spirit of Life. One can benefit from meditation at any time of life. With the gift of time and the inclination to slow physically, meditation is more appealing as we age.
The benefits of this spiritual focus return many-fold to the aging persons themselves. In a nursing home study, it was discovered that those residents who participated in some form of mediation on a regular basis thrived physically, mentally and emotionally, and lived significantly longer than those who did not engage in meditative practice.
In his book From Age-ing to Sage-ing, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi introduced me to the concept of harvesting. By harvesting he means "gathering in the fruits of a lifetime's experience and enjoying them in old age." Harvesting is nourishing the gift of gratitude. Harvesting can be assisted by outward rewards; it can be cultivated by inward reflection.
There are cultures that more readily recognize the gifts of elders: For example, in Japan, Honor the Aged Day is celebrated. There are pagan customs of "croning" women at the age of 50. And it is possible to create our own customs: In Morristown, there is an annual dinner for all those who are octogenarians or older.
In any case, the task of harvesting is life-long. If we are lucky, we can see the effects of our labors in students, institutions founded, projects launched. Even without that external verification, it is possible to meditate on or keep a list of ways we have contributed to others. There is no sin in this kind of pride! "Harvesting shows us that we have made a difference in the world. We sense that our lives have meaning; that we have contributed to others; and that we are worthwhile human beings." Through harvesting we catalogue learnings, thus grounding wisdom in experience.
We can also participate in another's harvesting by recognizing and thanking people whose lives have touched our own. Friends and family put on a celebration dinner highlighting a person's contributions, acknowledging them for inspiration, or kindnesses received. When have you called or written to a teacher who changed your life? Or thanked a neighbor or co-worker who went out of their way to stand up for you? How do we honor those who grace us simply by their presence? Those whose mental or physical limitations prevent them from contributing actively? Do we tell them that we are graced by their very being?
Harvesting is a life-long process. Just as the fields require tilling, planting, weeding, fertilizing and watering -- so the harvesting of a life requires tending and care. It cannot begin too soon.
Harvesting invites us to examine faith questions, to revisit the beliefs that have sustained us, to question assurances and to put to rest our questions. Our gathered wise elders expressed gratitude for this Unitarian church and expressed interest in exploring the values in rejected tradition, in redefining God more acceptably and in questioning the relationship between physics and metaphysics.
And it is just at this time of cherishing life for its own intrinsic worth that elders are also charged with coming to terms with death. For some, there is no longer any fear of death - - in fact, they have developed comfort with visiting the terminally ill and with the questions of death and dying. This does not come automatically; it is a result of thought, reflection, life experience, and sifting through the teachings of faith. One person wrote: "There is so much pleasure in living; and knowing one's time is limited makes life seem more valuable, even sacred."
Another wrote: "I look forward to death as a deep sleep, giving up the present pain and taking with me all the loves of my life and leaving a piece of me, my forever love, in my children and others with whom I have had wonderful love affairs."
And yet another: "Eldering work feels like a homecoming, a chance to resume the spiritual vocation that got interrupted when I was younger because of the practical necessities of family and career. Now I can go boldly into the future, not with small dreams, but with great ones."
The message I have tried to convey is this: While aging has its perils, down sides and losses, it also presents opportunities, challenges and tasks; furthermore, aging has gifts to offer both the person and his or her community. Aging wisely is a life-long process of "harvesting a life." Integrated into our lives and our communities, wise aging brings the hope and promise of making us whole.
The integration of doing and being, of youth and age, of action and contemplation brings the hope of making us whole. In her book Another Country, Mary Pipher notes: "The Lakota believe that if the old do not stay connected to the young, the culture will disintegrate. We see signs of this all around us now. Segregated societies are intellectually stagnant and emotionally poisoned. Only when all ages are welcome into the great hoop of life can a culture be a healthy one."
The sermon in a Unitarian Universalist setting is never the last word on any subject, but rather an invitation to further dialog.
You may want to read other visitors' comments on Rev. Carol S. Haag's "Gathering Wise Elders" .
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