Skip to main content

Sacred Aging

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit a retirement center.  It was a very pleasant experience.  The retirement center is affiliated with my own Quaker tradition, so in many ways I felt right at home.  I was there to offer a few words about Quaker spirituality and I always enjoy doing that.  It is fun to talk about yourself.  Since I am a Quaker, to talk about Quaker spirituality is a chance to talk about myself.           

Over the years I have visited countless retirement centers in my work.  Typically, they are quite nice places.  Although they are similar to nursing homes, they are not the same.  Most people don’t go into nursing homes until they are sick or incapacitated.  Nursing homes are often not quite as nice.  Few people probably are willingly there.           

Retirement centers, on the other hand, are normally populated by people who chose to be there.  Of course, it means most of the folks are of such age that they know they need to be somewhere where they will receive life care.  No one who is sixteen moves into a retirement center.  I do find many of the folks who live in retirement centers to be relatively content and still engaged with life.             

That’s when it began to dawn on me.  There really are different ways people cope with the accumulating years.  I began to think about the process of getting older---the process of aging.  I saw it in a new light.  The people surrounding me in this retirement center were giving me a new lease on getting older.  I am grateful to them for some new thoughts.          

A key distinction came to me.  I distinguish getting older from what I want to call sacred aging.  We all get older.  Even my grandchildren are getting older!  The good news for them is, they have a long way to go before they are old.  I am much closer to being “old.”  But I don’t mind.  As I see it, getting older is a given.  If you don’t get old, that means you have died!  I am in no hurry for that, so getting older is not a problem.           

What the folks at the retirement center taught me was an alternative to getting older.  They showed me something about the process of sacred aging.  I want to associate this idea with spirituality.  Getting older is clearly a biological process. Getting older can also be an emotional issue.  But sacred aging is a spiritual process.  Let me try to detail how I understand sacred aging.           

Basic to the idea of sacred aging is the recognition and acceptance that you are getting older.  You cannot reverse the physiology of getting older.  Sacred aging recognizes that truth and accepts it.  The second aspect of sacred aging is the recognition of the centrality of the Spirit.  Of course, they are many ways to talk about the Spirit.  For many people, the Spirit is God.  I am ok with that association.  For others the Spirit is just that---some kind of universal Spirit.  This Spirit is perceived to be more in the world---permeating all aspects of our world.  I am ok with that view of the Spirit, too.           

The key to sacred aging is to recognize that each one of us is an intricate part of God or that Spirit.  In Buddhist spirituality we would say that we are already home.  We don’t have to go home.  Sacred aging is the process of realizing we already are at home.  We don’t have to die to get there.  Sacred aging allows us to relax.  In effect, we can loosen our grip on life and live deeply in the Spirit.           

Our younger years often are so busy and preoccupying that living deeply in the Spirit is harder to do.  Our older years often leave a little more time to practice this deep living in the Spirit.  Let’s look a little more closely to how we might practice deep living in the Spirit.           

The first step is simple, but not easy to take.  This is the step of awareness.  To live deeply in the Spirit asks us to be aware of the Spirit in which we already live.  To become aware is to walk through the door of superficiality and enter more and more deeply into the Spirit.  It is clear to me how much of our culture pulls us away from depth and coaxes us to live on the surface of life.  Without awareness we are stuck on the surface.           

The second step of practicing deep living in the Spirit has to do with contemplative living.  I offer a basic definition of contemplative living by saying it is living with a sense of awe and wonder.  It is a stance in life that is content with what is.  The contemplative is full of gratitude.  The contemplative is a caring person who is always ready to show compassion to those in the world needing heartfelt attention.  It is the Spirit that fuels the contemplative.           

Sacred aging means I know all this and am willing to begin engaging the process to sacred aging.  Getting older is a given; sacred aging is a choice.  I know what I am going to choose.  I thank the gracious, wise folks at the retirement center for becoming my teachers.  As I get older, I am choosing sacred aging. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I-Thou Relationships

Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber.   I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s.   It was already a famous book by then.   I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it.   It has been a while since I looked at the book.             Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks?   I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece.   I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation.   I wish more people read him and took him seriously.           ...
13 comments
Read more

Walk the White Line

I was not very far into my run/walk yesterday, when I noticed them.   It was a gorgeous fall day.   It was warm, the sun shone brilliantly in the sky and the leaves are turning multiple colors.   It was a good day to be alive and to be outside.   Besides it was more fun than reading and grading papers!   I noticed ahead of me on the other side of the road a bunch of kids and two adults.   They were just emerging from a yard and were coming toward me on the side of the road that has no sidewalk.   It is not a hugely traveled road, but there are quite a few cars and the road is relatively narrow.   From what I was guessing, there were two mothers and five kids as I differentiated the pack unfolding one person at a time.   Naturally, the kids bolted to the front, forming a single line to include the mothers at the tail of the line.   I was not paying close attention as I loped along in my own little world.   But then I heard thes...
2 comments
Read more

Spiritual Commitment

I was reading along in a very nice little book and hit these lines about commitment.   The author, Mitch Albom, uses the voice of one of the main characters of his nonfiction book about faith to reflect on commitment.   The voice belongs to Albom’s old rabbi of the Jewish synagogue where he went until his college days.   The old rabbi, Albert Lewis, says “the word ‘commitment’ has lost its meaning.”    The rabbi continues in a way that surely would have many people saying, “Amen!”   About commitment he says, “I’m old enough when it used to be a positive.   A committed person was someone to be admired.   He was loyal and steady.   Now a commitment is something you avoid.   You don’t want to tie yourself down.”   I also think I am old enough to know that commitment was usually a positive word.   I can think of a range of situations in which commitment would have been seen to be positive.   For example, growing up was f...
20 comments
Read more