As I move through what Fr Richard Rohr has called the third half of life, I am deeply humbled and honored by my beloveds who call on me to hold the space and presence of the elder.
The most important lesson in that space is to remember we know nothing and to be open to new learnings with each breath and to hold each lesson, whether exciting or challenging, with deep gratitude.
The following quotes and practice from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations blog speak to that ripening.
“Old age, as such, is almost a complete changing of gears and engines from the first half of our lives, and does not happen without many slow realizations, inner calmings, lots of inner resistance and denials, and eventual surrenders. All of them by God’s grace work with our ever-deepening sense of what we really desire and who we really are.” —Richard Rohr
“]What looks like falling can largely be experienced as falling upward and onward, into a broader and deeper world, where the soul finds its fullness, is finally connected to the whole, and lives inside the Big Picture.” —Richard Rohr
“There is no more noble way to spend these years than to become an elder, to bear witness to the world as placeholders for peace, love, wisdom, and fearlessness.” —Kathleen Dowling Singh
“As we grow old we realize that, in all we have been through, Love has been using us for its own purposes. And for this we feel immensely grateful.”
—James Finley
“The soul of the “grand” parent is large enough to embrace the death of the ego and to affirm the life of God in itself and others, despite all imperfections. Its spaciousness accepts all the opposites in life”. —Richard Rohr
Practice
I Will Sing a New Song
We invite readers to join theologian and mystic Howard Thurman (1900–1981) as he prays for the courage and ability to stay renewed over the course of his life:
The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out. It has long ago been learned by heart so that now it repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit. It is a good song, measured to a rhythm to which I am bound by ties of habit and timidity of mind. The words belong to old experiences which once sprang fresh as water from a mountain crevice fed by melting snows. But my life has passed beyond to other levels where the old song is meaningless. I demand of the old song that it meet the need of present urgencies. Also, I know that the work of the old song, perfect in its place, is not for the new demand!
I will sing a new song. As difficult as it is, I must learn the new song that is capable of meeting the new need. I must fashion new words born of all the new growth of my life, my mind and my spirit. I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before, that all that is within me may lift my voice unto God. How I love the old familiarity of the wearied melody—how I shrink from the harsh discords of the new untried harmonies.
Teach me, my Father, that I might learn with the abandonment and enthusiasm of Jesus, the fresh new accent, the untried melody, to meet the need of the untried morrow. Thus, I may rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding.
I will sing, this day, a new song unto Thee, O God.
Experience a version of this practice through video and sound. https://email.cac.org/t/d-l-fudlydy-tlkrkjjdhy-u/
Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1953, 1994), 206–207.