In dealing with the spirituality of ageing I will establish three arbitrary categories. I am suggesting that mid-life covers the years 35 to 45. Maturity is embraced by the years 45 and 65. Those over 65 I am describing as seniors. I will deal with each of these three categories in turn.

MIDLIFE

Many attempt to deny the onset of mid-life. They hoodwink themselves into believing that they are still young and engage in an orgy of hyperactivity. The only person they fool, however, is themselves.

Midlife has its own specialness. It is a critical juncture in the human journey, which Mary D'Apice argues occurs earlier for women than for men.¹

Facing Illusions

Mid-life is a time for facing and encountering our illusions.

When we are young we regard the world as our oyster. We perceive our partner, if we are married, through the filter of our projections and we are committed to philosophies that we have not yet rigorously examined. We are also captive to the assumption of our immortality. By the time we confront mid-life, we have begun to appreciate that these perceptions were illusions.

The most difficult illusion to confront is the illusion of our immortality. However, if we do not begin confronting it, the result will be costly, both to ourselves and others.

Re-assessing Expectations

Mid-life also forces us to re-assess our expectations.

We imagined, when we were younger, that we would find a job that would be congenial and that would provide us with fulfilment. Few realize this possibility. For many, the need to provide for the growing demands of a family leaves them feeling imprisoned by the necessity for permanent employment.

We also realize that our expectations of the person we have married were unreal and overlooked their unique reality, which lay hidden beneath our projections. We also imagined that our partner would complete us. By mid-life we have begun to discover that their role is not to complete us, which [165] they cannot do without losing autonomy and arresting our development, but to goad us into finding within ourselves the parts that appear to be missing.

Confronting Ambitions

It is also at mid-life that we confront our ambitions. Some ambitions we will have achieved, but many will have been relinquished. To achieve some we had to relinquish others. By mid-life we also recognize that our achievements have come at a cost to ourselves and others.

The Importance of Relationships

We will also be aware that we have had difficulty establishing a balance between tasks and relationships. If we are men it is likely to be relationships that have suffered. The opposite is the case for many women. Women frequently enter mid-life resentful of the fact that family responsibilities have not allowed them to pursue careers.

In mid-life, men, provided that they are not stuck in an adolescent psychology, begin to be more concerned about relationships. The maintenance and fostering of relationships in midlife is important to both men and women. As one study argued, healthy development in midlife is due less to the absence of traumatic events in childhood than to continuing, nurturing friendships.²

Partners and Parents

Midlife is also a time for re-negotiating relationships within marriage and with our parents. Parental relationships need to be re-negotiated so that we can arrive at an adult to adult relationship, and leave behind the child/parent dynamic. We also need to rework relationships with internalised parents, with embedded memories of childhood relationships with our parents that continue to influence our responses.

Worldviews

During mid-life we also begin to realize that our world-view will only ever be partial. Thus, we begin to lay the groundwork for the development of humility and tolerance.

Christians are not immune from this process, though development towards greater flexibility in the way we manage our beliefs is not inevitable. Some respond to the challenge of the fragmentary nature of knowledge by shoring up older inadequate world-views, and hold the line. The healthier response is to realize the inadequacy of our paradigms, and the fact that we will never have it all together. This can lead to our surrender to the divine Presence, which is our real security and which will give us the freedom to keep reordering our view of life and God. [166]

Repentance

Mid-life is also a time for reflecting on past behaviours and for recognizing the distress we have deliberately or inadvertently caused others.

By the time we reach mid-life, we have also gained sufficient self-insight to identify forms of evil that we have generated or sustained, often with the purest of motives. This awareness, which results from our being able to stand outside ourselves, is a form of self-transcendence. It encourages us to pursue non-violent forms of power and to work for a new balance in society between love and power. Such an attitude indicates that we are midway between the archetypal influences of the puer and the senex.

Shadow Confrontation

It is also during mid-life that we are confronted by neglected aspects of the self. As Jung argued, it is in the noontime of life that the twilight is born. This second stage, into which we are launched, begins a descent, which involves us in a reversal of all the values and all the ideals of the morning.³

Crises

Mid-life is sometimes marked by a crisis in employment or in a marriage relationship.

The part of the self that has been kept repressed by one's career may suddenly materialize and demand expression. Men who have worked in management positions will quit and enrol in behavioural science courses that will equip them to work in the area of human services. Counsellors and therapists, who have spent their time helping people come to terms with themselves, will buy farms that will help them escape from engagement with an endless procession of troubled people. Women, whose careers were aborted when they had children, begin to look for opportunities to re-enter the workforce and re-establish themselves. For some, this will involve re-education or re-skilling.

A cruel irony of the mid-life transition is that, at the very time the husband wants to spend more time with his wife, she is wanting to escape domestic imprisonment, return to the work-force and experience its satisfactions. When men are swapping achievement for relationships, women are trading- in domestic commitments in the interests of achievement. In this reversal, women generally bear the heavier burden, as most continue to maintain the household. [167]

MATURITY

The period of maturity, from 45 to 65, continues and deepens developments begun during the previous ten years.

Generativity

I have argued that spiritual development is a two-phased process, involving self-flourishing and self-emptying. During our mature years the second of these phases becomes both more appropriate and more of a possibility. It is in this phase of our lives that we develop a capacity for what Erik Erikson calls generativity, the desire and ability to pass on what we have learned about life to others.

Physical Deterioration

Between 45 and 65 your body begins to tell you that you will not live forever, a fact that you dimly recognized before. You now become aware of tell-tale signs. You are more easily tired by activities that would not have troubled you before. Men can begin to have problems with their plumbing and women with their reproductive organs. With hormonal changes during and following menopause, women's skin, in the absence of hormonal therapy, begins to lose its elasticity. Many men lose hair from their scalps at the same time as it begins to grow more vigorously from their ears, their noses and their eyebrows. Aches in bones and joints can sometimes be abusively eloquent. We also begin to pay for the way we have abused our bodies in the past.

Restructuring Challenges

At the same time as we begin to realize that we are not as young as we once were, we become aware that it is no longer necessary for us to climb every mountain. We realize that there are some we will never climb, many as a result of alternative choices.

The fact that we do not have the desire or energy for frenetic activity does not mean that we will not respond to challenges. We will, however, carefully choose our tasks and husband our energies. We will have a different way of prioritizing what is important.

Creative Relinquishment

It is also during these years that we will begin to realize the importance of following our bliss, as Joseph Campbell put it, and of flowing with the rhythm of our bodies. [168]

We will also begin to finger the edges of wisdom, accommodating a multiplicity of paradigms and living without ultimate answers. Instead, we will live our ultimate questions, surrendering to an all-encompassing grace. This is not a surrender to passivity, but involves, instead, a relaxed attentiveness.

We will flow with the guidance and strength of a grace whose presence will be able increasingly to discern. We will discover, as Tony de Mello did, that change results from self-acceptance, not from putting pressure on ourselves to change. Hopefully, by the time we reach our senior years, an earlier "instrumental productive" orientation will have been exchanged for the way of "passive mastery."⁴

This new way of being will manifest in humility, tolerance and compassion.

Wholeness

If we have taken up one of the major tasks of the second half of life, during the years of mid-life transition; if we have begun to work on the conscious development of our inner being, we will, in our maturity, be more in touch with who we are in our totality. We will have begun the process of integrating the shadow side of our reality, including our contra-sexual aspect, our feminine side if we are men and our masculine side if we are women.

We will also begin to realize that the holiness to which God calls us does not involve repression or the imposition of a super-spirituality. We will be aware that what God is calling us to is to be ourselves, to live with integrity who we are, and, at the same time, to be in the process of integrating into a unity the diverse aspects that make us who we are.

As a reflection of this new wisdom, we will be easier on ourselves and be able to laugh at our faults. When we can do this we will not hold the sins of others against them. We will find that we are able to be a strength, in conflict situations, to bitterly opposed protagonists, without feeling that we need to take sides.

The understanding that reality is ultimately paradoxical will gradually dawn on us.

We will also find ourselves increasingly grounded, not in inherited opinions or the scholarship of experts, but in our own reality. At the same time, we will appreciate the unreality of the notion of a separate self. We will begin to feel ourselves part of a larger, all-encompassing cosmic Self, with which we will be encouraged to flow. This will be paired with a recognition of our radical inability to accomplish significant improvements in the world.⁵ [169]

The integration of the diverse aspects of the self and the integration of the self into the larger reality of the phenomenological universe, in other words, the search for simplicity and unity, will be a task that will increasingly consume our energy.

Solitude

This will most frequently take place in moments of solitude.

Anthony Storr, a renowned psychotherapist, has argued that, while psychotherapy has placed an almost exclusive emphasis on relationships, an equal emphasis should be given to solitude, the sort of solitude that allows for the interplay of imagination and integration, the energy of which births creativity.

Storr contends that those children who are best able to enjoy solitude, and to use it creatively, are those whose mothers help them feel loved and secure. This gives them the freedom to explore by themselves and to play on their own.

Suggesting that Freud was reductionist in restricting ecstasy to sex, Storr argued that ecstasy is a much broader phenomenon and is associated with the process of integration, which frequently manifests in creativity and productivity.

Storr further contends that there are three stages in the productive life of creative artists. The first is when they are influenced by mentors. The second is when they break out into rhetorical exuberance. The third, or final stage is when they engage in focussed integration. Focussed integration, evident in the mature works of composers, poets and artists, disdains expectation and acclaim. Developed creative genius is concentrated, instead, on the inner integration of the individual composing the work. They are no longer interested in engaging an audience. Their work is for themselves.⁶

Facing Our Mortality

It is also in our maturity that we seriously begin to come to terms with our mortality. We experience it in our bodies and, when our parents die, we realize that we will be the next cabs off the rank.

Acknowledgment and acceptance of our mortality is slow, but, if we have learned to flow with the rhythm of life, we will recognize that death is an inevitable part of living. If we have reached what Erikson describes as the stage of generativity, we will appreciate, as Ecclesiastes suggests, that there is a time to die.⁷ Having observed our parents die, we will realize that death often comes as a release. We may, or may not, be afraid of death, but most of us will confess to a residual concern about the physical process of dying. [170]

Facing one's mortality healthily and courageously, free of morbidity and histrionics, will greatly assist with the other tasks beckoning those in their mature years and will enrich the special pleasures of those years.

SENIORITY

The next stage, seniority, begins at sixty-five.

Health

The more sensible our diet, the more we take care of our bodies, the more we keep our minds active, the more we exercise, the more positively we approach life and the more meditative our lifestyle, the more we will extend our span of years. None of these measures on their own, or all of them together, will guarantee longevity or keep serious illness permanently at bay. However, their neglect will shorten our lives.

Those in their senior years, the elderly, face considerable challenges. These include diminished physical capacity and increasing physical discomfort, including ineradicable pain. At any stage in this process of dissolution, there is an anxious concern over how much more needs to be endured.⁸

Difficulties faced also include an increasing loss of short-term memory and a narrowing range of involvements, with its threat to self-worth. It usually involves decreased buying-power, and, for some, confrontation with poverty.⁹

Loss of Friends

The years also bring a shrinking of one's physical environment. The elderly often need to move out of their homes, especially if they can no longer look after themselves. There is also a loss of long-term friends and acquaintances.¹⁰ Strangers occupy the homes of people who were one's friends and acquaintances. The aged face a life of increasing aloneness, and often loneliness.

The Threat of Senility

The elderly are even more fearful of the threat of senility, their own or that of a partner, if the partner is still alive. Even if they are not confronted by senility, some feel they have nothing left to live for. They agree with Ben Sira that the sentence of death is welcome. Those who feel this way are wounded in their narcissism.¹¹ [171]

Active Contemplation of the End

The elderly also actively contemplate dying. Married couples wonder who will go first. In this context, eros merges with and begins to dance with thanatos.

Discarded

Personal difficulties are also often exacerbated by the way society regards and treats the aged. In a society that values production and possession, they are no longer seen to be useful. They feel obsolete and on the point of being discarded. William Butler Yeats captured this mood in describing an aged man as a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.¹² This is surely the final segregation.

While some ancient agrarian cultures honoured their aged, others discarded them. In Sparta, the aged, segregated from the community, went off to the hills to die. The law of Chios prevented those who were unable to live well from living in distress.¹³ Some American Indian tribes also abandoned their sickly aged to die far from the tribal centre.¹⁴ Western society sidelines its aged, often consigning them to psychological death, before they actually physically die.

The aged often feel unloved. They are treated with indifference and avoided.¹⁵ This ultimate discrimination is now labelled ageism!

Enjoyment in the Simple Things of Life

Life for seniors does not have to be joyless. The elderly can gain enjoyment from simple pleasures, a child's smile or a turn of phrase. They can also approach sources of pleasure differently, finding delight in a garden or sensual pleasure in touch. They need not be deprived of sexual expression, but will approach the nectar with greater deliberation and more delicate mastery.

Maintaining an Interest in Life

Society suggests to the aged that they retire obligingly to a self-pitying existence behind artificial barricades. It is important for them to disregard this advice and maintain a vital interest in life.

Seniors, with their superior insight, are open to new insights into their world and into its changing moods. This visionary capacity was evident in the biblical account of Simeon's encounter with the Christ child.¹⁶

The Maintenance of Friendships

It is important for seniors to maintain friendships, which is not easy, as many of their contemporaries have died and as physical confinement or distance often prohibits regular visits. However, contact with those who [172] remain needs to be kept up and new friendships formed. Those seniors who have continued to mature towards a ripe stage of generativity have developed a genius for friendship, in which age is no barrier.

The aged have a unique role in the lives of younger members of the family, church or community. The old and the young have a particular affinity, which each recognizes. They deal similarly with time, which they are willing to lavishly bestow on each other.

Creativity

Seniors should also be encouraged to be involved in creative activity. It is an occupation that helps to keep them youthful and to help them feel useful. Robert Louis Stevenson urged the elderly to continue to immerse themselves in life passions that remained available to them.¹⁷ While his students were in a nearby room lamenting his death, Titian, the Venetian master, in his last hours, rose from his bed and went to an easel to work on a final painting. Pope John the XXIII convened the epoch-making 2nd Vatican Council when he was in his eighties. Age did not diminish the compassion of Mother Teresa.

Contemplation

It is important for seniors to develop a contemplative lifestyle. It is important for them to cherish and live the present moment.

A Unique Social Role

Seniors also need to recognize that they have a critical social role. They are a unique gift to the community. They are the source of its wisdom. An old Balinese legend tells the story of a remote village community that used to sacrifice and eat their old men. A day arrived when there was not a single old man left and the traditions of the village were lost. The village, however, wanted to build a great house for the meetings of the assembly, but did not know how to distinguish the top from the bottom of the tree trunks they had cut for the purpose. If the timbers were arranged the wrong way up, disaster would ensue. A young man said that, if the villagers promised never to eat the old men any more, he would come up with a solution. They promised. He brought out his grandfather, whom he had hidden. The old man taught the community to tell the top from bottom.¹⁸

It is interesting to note that the Buddha's quest for wisdom was generated by his exposure to the infirmities of age.

As we grow older we discover that our greatest treasure, the treasure we have to share, lies within. This treasure becomes available to us once we have travelled full-circle in our journey, when we arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.¹⁹ Seniors have a special ability to [173] help those who are younger than themselves face their ageing. They are our prophets, for they remind us that what we see so clearly in them is a process in which we all share.²⁰

The elderly are also able to lighten the seriousness of life for others. They don't take themselves too seriously. A diplomat, thanking Pope John XXIII for Pacem in Terris, asked him how many people worked in the Vatican. The Pope replied, "probably only half".

Grandparents are special to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They have a generous supply of hugs and encouragement.

Relinquishment

Seniors, while having the opportunity of continuing a rich life, have to face certain relinquishments. They have to relinquish grief over lost opportunities and mistakes and to surrender their position as the fulcrum of family life They have to give up their control over their children and grandchildren. They are also encouraged to surrender residual antipathies and to acknowledge that they are no longer the source of their own security.

The final act of relinquishment is the giving up of life itself, where death is accepted as the final act of living, as the ultimate surrender to a sustaining grace that calls us into life. When Aldous Huxley's wife was dying, he placed his hand on her head and gently encouraged her to let go and move forward into the light.²¹ This same spirit was reflected in the comment of Teilhard de Chardin, who argued that the issues of personal survival or happiness didn't worry him greatly. Once he had yielded up the fruit of his life, he was happy to know that the best of him passed on forever into One who is more beautiful and greater than he was. ²² [174]

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