“My life is light, waiting for the death wind...”
T. S. Eliot.
Anna was elderly and frail, waiting for the death wind to carry her away. She had lived with a husband for seven years and then, after his death, as a widow until she was eighty-four. Now she spent her days in in the temple, "speaking of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem"(Luke 2:36–38).
Old age is often overclouded by losses—separation, bereavement, physical and mental decline. These blows can fall on us at any time, but they seem to fall heaviest in our latter years. There’s no way to shield ourselves from the difficulties we encounter as we age, but our last years can be happy, productive years if we grow old with God..
Age breaks down our strength and energy and strips us of energy and busyness so we have more time to develop intimacy with God. Without the limitations of old age we might never make the most of our lives. Poet Edmund Waller (1606-1687) wrote,
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become
As they draw near their eternal home
A friend of mine once mused that years of weakness and failing health had made his life worth living. “How awful it would have been if, instead of getting old, I’d been extinguished in middle age without learning what God has to offer.”
The senior years can be viewed as a pleasantly useless era where we qualify for Social Security, AARP, senior discounts and have a lot of free time to spend on ourselves, or they can be a time of great usefulness to God.
First off, we can serve as mentors and conservators of wisdom and virtue, the essential role elders play in society. We can point out the ancient paths and show others how to walk them (cf., Jeremiah 6:16).
Furthermore, there is the power of an ordinary life lived with an awareness of God’s presence, seeing him in everything and doing all things for him—Teresa of Avila in her kitchen working among the pots and pans; Brother Lawrence in a monastic scullery. This is the mark of a mature soul, quietly, humbly going about his or her homely business, living in joy and leaving behind the sweet fragrance of Jesus.
Izaak Walton, the olde angler, wrote of a companion: “How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented old age…after being tempest–tossed through life, safely moored in a snug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days! His happiness sprung from within himself and was independent of external circumstances, for he had that inexhaustible good nature which is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather" (The Compleat Angler).
And when our journey leads to illness and weakness and we’re confined to our homes, our years of fruitful activity are not over. Like Anna, we can worship and pray.
And we can love. Love remains our last and best gift to God and others. As St. John of the Cross wrote in retirement, “Now I guard no flock, nor have I any office. Now my work is in loving alone” (A Spiritual Canticle).
Prayer and love—the mighty works of the aged.
And finally, on ahead, there is what ancient spiritual writers called the athanasias pharmakon (the medicine of immortality), God’s cure for all that ails us. This is God’s loving provision for us beyond earthly existence—“that when this mildew age, has dried away, our hearts will beat again as young and strong and gay” (George MacDonald).
This is my hope and, I must say, the most cherished article of my creed.
David Roper
12.23.20
