by Rev. Thomas Disrud

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

It doesn’t take the turning of the year to be aware of the passage of time. When this year came along I had that familiar feeling—you might have this as well—that the past year seemed to go by faster than any other year that I can remember. People older than me tell me that this is a pattern that is going to continue.

And as time passes, there are the signs that we’re getting older. Last week my oldest brother Kensel called me. After talking about the weather and Christmas and what was happening with his family he got around to his big news: On Valentine’s Day he is going to have a hip replacement. Now my brother is 23 years older than I am—I was a surprise in my parents’ later years—but it made me aware that those little aches and pains that I sometimes feel are probably not going to recede with time. Makes me think of that line about how getting old is not for sissies.

And indeed it is not. The awareness that we are getting older—and that one day all of us will eventually die—is a reality. And so often it is not something we want to face, but face it we must. As Woody Allen has said, none of us gets out of this world alive.

We live in a culture where aging is often seen as a battle, as something we fight against, something that we need to keep at bay as long as possible. And in the process we want to deny anything that is connected with aging. Instead we value the latest consumer electronic gadget. We value the things that will keep you looking young. Just this past week there was the story about the business called A Younger You where it is alleged botulism toxins were substituted for Botox. Now of course Botox causes a kind of paralysis of your face but it does apparently get rid of wrinkles. We really do live in a culture where aging is seen as a battle.

And so it is no wonder that we don’t see images of older people like we do images of younger people in our society. Older folks will talk about as their hair gets white they seem to disappear from view. Wisdom is something that gets lost.

On my sabbatical a couple of years ago I spent five weeks on the Indonesian island of Bali.  Bali is magical in all kinds of ways, but one of the things I think about most from my time there is the way the generations interrelate.  The people at both ends of the spectrum - children and old people - are revered.  The village honors them and takes care of them.  In the case of children they seem to be loved and doted upon and yet not spoiled.  Shortly after I returned home from Bali I was spending time with a four-year-old.  Her father was going to serve her pancakes with chocolate.  But she wanted waffles with chocolate and what ensued was a meltdown of big proportions.  In that moment, I, her loving uncle, had to retreat to the bathroom and take some deep breaths.  I realized that after some time in Bali I had not experienced a meltdown.  Yes, kids got fussy, but not in the way that they seem to here.  There everyone cares for children and they take time with them.  They are part of the circle.  They don't seem to be vying for time and attention the way children here so often do.

At the other end of life, old people in Balli are respected and revered.  They are honored for their wisdom. I lived next to a family and the grandfather spent time with his grandchildren. Together they fed the ducks in the surrounding rice paddies.  The grandmother’s main role was to make offerings to the spirits. In the morning and in the evening she quietly went about the work of preparing the offerings and presenting them to the spirits.  She said her prayers as she went about this important work.

There was somehow in Bali a seamless quality in the way that people, of all the generations, were together. They seemed connected. I think that part of it is the culture, a deep valuing of relationship and the village. Time does not seem pressured there the way that is does in this culture. We are more focused on what we have and what we have, paradoxically allows us to become more isolated. There just isn’t the time to listen to what the elders might have to say.

In our culture, there are many ways to grow old and it seems that some do it better than others. And judging who will do it well and who won’t isn’t always easy to predict.

Researcher George Vaillant, in a book entitled Aging Well publishes the results of a number of studies on aging that examine the lives of people for sixty or more years. Vaillant worked with these studies for over 30 years and now finds himself in his 60s. The studies covered people born between 1910 and 1930. Some were privileged and some were not. Some of them had already died, but many others continue to enjoy life. 

The physical dimensions of healthy aging are well known. And these studies confirm that the predictors of a “happy-well” later life are what we might expect:

*a stable marriage or life partnership,

*no smoking,

*little use of alcohol,

*regular exercise,

*maintenance of normal weight,

*and a mature adaptive style.

Vaillant describes the mature adaptive emotional style as little more than “making a lemon into lemonade,” and the use of altruism and a sense of humor in handling conflict and stress. Beyond the physical factors, he states, “it is social aptitude, not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.”

If you make it into the upper age ranges, you’ve probably maintained good health practices, but that is only the baseline for living longer. How we live—as Vaillant describes it, whether we are “happy-well” or “sad-sick,” depends a whole lot on attitude. He contends that genetic factors and economic status have little to do with aging well either. Once we’re old, relationships are what really matter.

His work indicates that “a mature coping style strengthens relationships because being able to handle emotional issues gracefully removes barriers between people. Advancing age impairs some motor skills, but maturation can make people sharper at emotional tasks.”

Vaillant contends that emotional development—and success—can occur late in life. Although he trained as a psychoanalyst, he says, “Freud vastly overestimated the importance of childhood.” You are never too old to grow. “You’ve got to learn to garden as you get older,” Vaillant says. “Sow and re-sow the seeds of love.” Cultivating relationships doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert, a “people person, or a sales [person] who belongs to six country clubs and has a Christmas-card list 200 names long.

“Even having people who love you is not particularly important. … What’s critical is allowing yourself to love others, and being able to take people in—as in, ‘I’ve got you under my skin.’ When someone gives you a compliment, do you cross the street, or do you feel genuinely good about yourself?

“In a personal encounter, do you come away feeling resentment or gratitude? A simple lesson from the...study,” Vaillant advises, “is to worry less about cholesterol and more about gratitude and forgiveness.

“With the passage of time and the exposure to experience,” he says, “an erosion of superior layers of the personality can take place. Parts of your life are exposed that were hidden from you, which you had no avenue to appreciate.

“When we are old,” Vaillant writes, “our lives become the sum of all whom we have loved. It is important not to waste anyone. One task of living out the last half of life is excavating and recovering all of those whom we loved in the first half. Thus, the recovery of lost loves becomes an important way in which the past affects the present.”

Reading this book I was reminded again that we live in the midst of a lot of mystery. There is a kind of alchemy in the way past experiences shape our present and our future. How any one of us will respond to any given experience can’t be fully known. It is part genetics, part experience, and part attitude. We can’t know how all of it will work together. There are many things that predict where we will be—but there are also things in us that are not as quantifiable, especially when it comes to the way we grow older. Part of our charge is to be present with where we are—with the aches and pains as well as the joys.

One of the realities of aging is the awareness that our bodies don’t work the way they used to, and this is not easy to accept. We learn that simple tasks may cause more pain than we are used to, and it can come as a surprise to discover this. And at some point we may be faced with the reality that it may be hard for us to take care of ourselves. This might be the part that writer May Sarton was talking about when she said: “Nobody told me you had to be so courageous to be old.”

She wrote in her book At Eighty Two: A Journal, “This extraordinary weather goes on. I have not been able to talk into this machine much lately because I have been in so much pain, again with that feeling of desperation. I do not know what to do with myself. But yesterday and today things were a little better.

“The thing with pain is that you must go ahead and do what you want to do even when it hurts. That’s how I managed to garden yesterday. Of course the satisfaction then outweighs the pain. Today I’m planning to put in three miserable looking iris that I ordered.”

Sarton in her writing does not try to dress it up and act as if the pain is not there. What she does is to simply be with the pain and also with the things that bring her joy. And from this comes a sense of reality, that she is living life in a kind of balance. It is not all good and not all bad, but simply what is.

Too often we think that if we avoid the pain we can make it go away, but it may be that in taking that approach we actually make it worse. Denial usually doesn’t make the reality go away; it just may make it more pronounced later. Wisdom comes in holding the pain with the joy and seeing life in perspective.

There is in this process a kind of coming into wisdom, what writer Ram Dass calls ripening into God. I like the image of ripening. We move into a fullness of being and might be able to see our lives and we see the world with a wiser and deeper perspective and move closer to the end of our lives grounded in that wisdom. The world, paradoxically, gets bigger and also gets a whole lot smaller.

There’s a little Sufi story of Nasrudin, who is now an old man looking back on his life. He is sitting with friends having tea and telling his story.

“When I was young I was fiery – I wanted to awaken everyone. I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change the world.

“In mid-life I awoke one day and realized my life was half over and I had changed no one. So I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change those close around me who so much needed it.

“Alas, now I am old and my prayer is simpler. ‘Allah,’ I ask, ‘please give me the strength to at least change myself.’”

We integrate where we have been with what we hope the present and future might be. We learn from our mistakes and see how we might do it differently if we had the chance.

No matter what chapter of life we’re in, including old age, we continue to grow. We continue to understand the story of our life and how that story connects with something larger.

If we are able to be present, with aging also comes a great deal of possibility. Throughout life we are often defined by the roles we have chosen for ourselves or the roles that others have chosen for us. And with aging we might have more opportunities to let go of some of those roles, and that can be liberating. But this is not always easy. Think of the people who retire and don’t live very long—they don’t know who they are if they are not in their role. But for others, it is a liberating time, one when they can do things that they have not felt they were free to do before. With the coming or retirement or getting older, there is an opening to try new things.

The way that we are able to look at our lives—and also to integrate one part with the other parts is critical to how our lives will be as we get older. This is a statement from a woman named Nadine Stair, age 85:

“If I had my life to live over, I’d like to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I’d limber up. I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I’d take more chances. I’d climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I’d eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments… and if I had it to do over again I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else—just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had it to do over again I’d travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I’d start barefoot earlier in the spring, stay that way later in the fall. I’d go to more dances. I’d ride more merry-go-rounds. I’d pick more daisies. I would live each moment more.”

The writer Ram Dass says that wisdom involves the emptying and quieting of the mind, it means standing back and viewing the whole, discerning what matters and what does not, weighing the meaning and depth of things.

He has described this chapter of life as the “don’t know phase of learning.” It is when we can be uncertain and be okay with that, because we have lived life enough to know that it will be fine if we don’t have the answers. It is when we are not constrained in ways we have been in previous chapters of life and may have some opportunities to experiment about how we want to do things. And with this can come a kind of freedom. We can feel freer to make mistakes, to follow our hunches. We can experiment or we can simply choose to do nothing at all.

 A son wanted talk to his aged and somewhat forgetful mother about what inevitably lay ahead, her death, but he was stumbling about a good deal. Finally he said, “Mother, you’re getting along in age, and who knows what may happen? I mean, shouldn’t we make a few decisions about arrangements?”

The old lady kept silent, but was smiling calmly, so the son pressed on. “I mean, Mom, do you want to be buried or cremated?”

The mother patted his cheek, then replied, “Well, son, I don’t know. Why don’t you just surprise me?”

Ripening into God involves both loss and also possibility. It is about being in the present. It is a time when we are able to see things that we have not been able to see.

Words of Longfellow:

Age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.

No matter what our age, we are learning, growing beings. Each one of us is on the journey, no matter our age, no matter our life circumstances. And some chapters are easier than others. Sometimes the lessons are obvious, sometimes they are not. Through it all may we continue to grow in wisdom, and ripen, in all of our days, in love. Amen.

Prayer

Spirit of life, open us to the wisdom we carry within us. Each day, may we live fully this one wild and precious life we have been given. Open to what is next for us, living in faith that whatever it is, it will be enough. Living in wisdom, help us to bring what we have to offer into the world. For all these gifts we give thanks. Amen.

Benediction

In all of your days may you know life, and may you know life more abundantly. Go now this day in love and in hope. Amen.