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In Praise of Wrinkles

 

            The title for this piece must seem very weird as a way of talking about spirituality and trying to inspire.  I might have joined you in thinking that until I saw a recent headline from Pope Francis.  I admit I very much like Francis, even though I cannot agree with everything he says.  Granted he has a tough job being a spokesperson for God and more than one billion Catholics across the globe.  When I say the headline, I knew I had to do a piece reflecting on the Pope’s words.  The headline read: “pope praises wrinkles, criticizes obsession with looking ‘forever young.’”  I knew I would agree with him.

            The Pope opens the article with a great question.  “Why are the elderly unappreciated and seen as useless when they carry so much wisdom about life and can open the door to God's tenderness, Pope Francis asked.”  As I now approach the years where the young ones judge me “elderly,” I can appreciate these papal sentiments.  And as folks move into retirement from full-time jobs, they can be discarded----or at least disregarded---as “useless.”  To see people merely from a productivity model is dangerous and has no place in the church or spirituality.  It makes a mockery of the creation story which tells us that God created humans in the divine image.  Genesis does not talk about our worth as human beings in terms of our net worth or our ability to be productive members of society. 

            The Pope is an old guy, now in his 80s.  I get it when he tells listeners to get over their obsession with trying to look young and staying young in appearance.  Act and look your age, I can imagine him saying.  He puts it bluntly when he brings wrinkles into the equation.  “Wrinkles are a sign of experience, a sign of life, a sign of maturity, a sign of having made a journey.  Do not touch them to become young, that your face might look young.”  I resonate with all this.  Taking it personally, I can claim I do have fairly extensive experience in life.  My wrinkles are a sign of a life lived in an involved fashion.  I hope they are a sign of maturity.  I love the idea that my wrinkles are a sign.  As sign, they signal something.  As the Pope puts it, they are a signal that I have made a journey. 

            As with all journeys, my journey of life has not been a straight line.  I have wandered off my designated path.  I have made mistakes.  Probably my mistakes caused more wrinkles!  But mistakes were experiences.  Hopefully, I learned from these and I can now impart the lessons as a result of my experiences.  My wrinkles are signs that I likely know what I am talking about!  I am going to take the Pope’s advice about my wrinkles: “Do not touch them!”

            As Francis developed his thought, he turned to a favorite image to suggest what happens to us in life.  He uses the image of wine.  Contrasting an obsession with looking forever young, the Pope says our worth as human beings is much more than our appearance.  He opines, “What matters is the entire personality; it's the heart that matters, and the heart remains with that youth of a good wine — the more it ages the better it is.”  Once again, I find myself in agreement with Francis.  It is our entire personality.  God honors and uses all of us, not just our appearance, to do the work of God in the world. 

            Francis is on solid biblical ground when he claims it is the heart that matters.  The heart is the source of love---especially the compassion, which the Pope calls for humans beings to show each other---particularly, the ones who suffer and don’t have much.  I can even imagine the Pope with twinkling eyes saying, besides the heart is like a good wine.  The more it ages, the better it becomes.  I like that image.  I am becoming a good wine---a wine of choice.  If we age rightly, then we should be less attached---less attached to our looks, our possessions and anything else that might cause us to withhold our hearts. 

            If God is love, as I believe God to be, then we are made in the image of love.  It is our heart---not our face or muscles---that is in the divine image.  And our hearts are created to give us life and to give others love and compassion.  I like the papal touch on this note.  The Pope says, “old age helps us understand this aspect of God who is tenderness.  I appreciate the note that a God who is love is also a God who is tender and acts tenderly towards us, the children.  And we who want to imitate God, should also live out a call to be tender.  This certainly comes as good news in a world that is likely to accost us, abuse us, knock us around and all the rest.

            Near the end of his remarks, Francis asks a poignant question, wondering why “this throwaway culture decided to throw out the elderly, considering them useless?”  He concludes his remarks with these words.  “The elderly are the messengers of the future, the elderly are the messengers of tenderness, the elderly are the messengers of the wisdom of lived experience.  Let us move forward and watch the elderly.”  I don’t yet see myself as elderly…but I am getting there.  I do have some wrinkles, so I am on the way.

            I suspect Francis is having some fun to make a serious point in his remarks.  He is telling us not to take our superficial self too seriously.  Our looks are superficial.  That does not mean our looks are unimportant.  But time will change how we look.  Trying to stay young forever is both unrealistic and impossible.  It attempts to stop time or to deal superficially with time.  We spend our time covering up what time has done to us.  To cover up wrinkles is to deliver a false self to the world (and probably ourselves).  We pretend to be someone we really are not. 

            Those who have some age, join me and Francis in praise of wrinkles.  Let’s go share our experience, offer compassion and make the world a better place.

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