To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the meaning of life. –Robert Louis Stevenson
For too many old age is an age of anguish and boredom. I have begun to learn – and experience – that one response to both is a sense of significant being.
I have come to embrace the idea that there is a level of existence where the challenge that cannot be – should not be – silenced is: Who needs me? Who needs us – the aging, the elderly? Then there is a more challenging question: How do I/We discern and relate to a source of ultimate meaning?
What I live by is not only a sense of belonging but also a sense of indebtedness. My need to be needed corresponds to a reality: something is asked of me; something is asked of all of us human beings. My/Our aging must not be taken to mean a process of suspending the requirements and commitments which continue to invite and challenge me/us to embrace. As I age I will ‘do’ less AND I am still called to ‘be’ more.
Too often ‘we’ conceive of old age as a stage of stagnation into which a person enters with his habits, follies, and prejudices. Too often ‘we’ believe that to be good to the old is to cater to their eccentricities (or to ignore them).
I believe that our potential for change and growth is much greater than ‘we’ are willing to admit and that old age be regarded not as the age of stagnation but as the age of opportunities for inner growth. The elderly must not be treated as a patient but as full of possibilities and potential.
Old age provides us the opportunity to identify and attain the values and virtues that we failed to sense – or that we ignored. Old ages provides us the opportunity to transform our experiences into wisdom. The aging-years are truly formative-years, rich in opportunities to unlearn the follies of a lifetime, to see through our self-deceptions, to deepen our acceptance and understanding and compassion and to become more honest with ourselves without doing violence to ourselves.
We might enter into old age as we entered into other ‘ways opening’ during our lifetime. We entered with a little dread and a great deal of expectancy. We are now provided the opportunity to shed our prejudices and let go of our stereotypes and ‘fears of the other’ (think: the stranger, the one who is not like us).
I am also thinking that in every home for the aging that there ought to be a ‘Director of Learning’ – a ‘Dean’ in charge of intellectual and spiritual development. We insist on minimum standards for physical well-being, what about minimum standards for intellectual, emotional and spiritual well-being?
What our nation needs are senior universities; universities for the advanced in years where wise folk teach the potentially wise, where the purpose of learning is not a career, but where the purpose of learning is learning itself.
There is much more I might offer but I will conclude with this today: the goal is not to keep the old busy. The goal is to remind the elderly that every moment is an opportunity for growth, for development and for emotional and spiritual healing. Inner purification is just as important as hobbies and recreation and field trips. The elimination of resentments, of residues of bitterness, of jealousies provide opportunities for growth and healing.
…at the end of the day, what’s more important? Knowing that a few meaningless figures balanced—or knowing that you were the person you were called to be? –Sophie Kinsella
Searcher-Seeker 