Still Praying

As a younger woman, I occasionally critiqued my aging mother’s behaviors. She would respond: “You’ll understand when you get to be my age.”  Of course, she was right. Now, coming up on the age of 80, “I get it.” Previously, my mid-life arrogance kept me from extending mercy to my mother and likely betrayed my own lack of full maturity.

At the height of our adult powers, it can be difficult to imagine what growing frailty and greater dependence feels like. Witnessing the diminishing powers of a parent may trouble their adult offspring, but in that discomfort is an invitation. The invitation is to outgrow the image of their parent that was optimal for their early sense of security — the parent as a powerful and reliable protector whose sole reason for existence is to secure their well-being. Indeed, the “good enough” parent adequately supports their child, but does not place the burden of their own needs on a young creature who is still dependent and vulnerable.

Adult children take a significant step toward maturity when they appreciate the critical role their imperfect and very human parent played in helping them make the transition from dependency to interdependency. A further step is to mercifully embrace a fuller image of their parent’s humanity and life — a life that included more than their role as their nurturer. This is a mature act of mercy that benefits both the parent, and their offspring. A mother’s days song lyric I wrote expresses this:

Since there are no perfect mothers, we must struggle to forgive

How their frailties may have wounded, what their limits could not give.

Yet when we learn to bless our mothers as only they could be,

Then the grace that we’ve extended grants us new maturity.

We are never too old to extend grace and a manageable measure of support to the imperfect parents who raised us. In doing so, we both take responsibility for our adult lives, and exercise our capacity for self-compassion. Who knows? When we grow up in this way, we may be better equipped to accept the limits we will deal with as we age!

 

 

 

 

In the past six months I’ve re-located and re-married. My youngest grown son and his partner recently visited us over the holidays. As my new husband and I drove them around town, I sensed they were adjusting to seeing me both with a new man and in a whole new physical context. I quipped: “Since you saw me last, I’ve died and moved on to Doylestown.”

Having spent 8 years in ministering to the dying, I’m often asked: “What helps prepare us for our own dying?” The folks I accompanied to death’s door, used to ask the same question. I’d ask: “Have you ever re-located in your life? Are there ways your experience of moving have prepared you for dying?”

I’ve re-located 15 times in my 75 year lifespan. Though I don’t yet know what it is to die, I suspect death asks of us a similar kind of trust and relinquishment as moving does. It’s no small thing to leave the familiar context of “the known” and trust that a relatively new and unfamiliar context will make provision for us.

How the chaos of packing disrupts soothing routines! Finding needed objects in our familiar setting can become a real challenge! In moving, we also relinquish deeply-rutted patterns of life suited to the specifics of our context. We may no longer live so close to the library that we can walk there or have easy access to a nearby playground where the grandkids can let off steam.

In moving we let go of natural features to which we’ve become attached — a favorite tree in the backyard, or the nearby lake with the walking paths. We let go of a human landscape as well:  like treasured, trusted relationships built over time with professional providers, and friends.  We have no guarantee that the next doctor, repairman or neighbor will be as helpful or supportive. Often our moves, entail letting go of “stuff” — mementos of our past, photos, collectibles for which there is no room in our new setting. All this relinquishment comes with a boatload of mixed emotions.

While we can take a certain amount of initiative in entering a new community, as a newcomer, we are still somewhat dependent on the graciousness of those who already live there. Will they share the information we need to make our way in a new setting? Can we  trust them and will they trust us? Will they be open to friendship? In all this we must either exercise faith that our supports will be restored over time, or else become exceedingly anxious and try to control in situations where it’s bound to backfire.

In making geographical changes, re-location specialists and real estate agents act as transitional figures, accompanying us as we let go of the familiar and welcome the new. Similarly, hospice personnel accompany the dying as they leave their “familiar” and welcome the holy mystery of what lies beyond death.

Is it any wonder that the dying sometimes report dreams or waking visions about travel, packing suitcases, and getting on forms of transportation? Just as our lives are richer by learning to live as if we are dying, so may our deaths be enriched by dying as if we’re moving on!

 

 

In one “Still Praying” meditation, an aging widower asks if it’s worth the risk to attach to others his same age. If he gives his heart again, his age increases the chances he’ll again experience the pain of losing a beloved. He may wonder if it’s fair to subject a potential mate to similar suffering, should he die first. Is the pain of loss worth the benefit and pleasure of attachment? 

This question became more personal following my husband’s sudden death. Was I now meant to live a more solitary life, while enjoying a variety of meaningful, but non-exclusive relationships? I had role models in several friends who had happily lived that way for many years. With the intermittent companionship and steady support of one of those friends, I tried on a version of that lifestyle for nine months.

Approaching the first anniversary of my loss, a compatible older widower expressed interest in exploring an exclusive and committed relationship. My footloose and fancy-free lifestyle seemed less attractive. I felt myself drawn toward living intimately with one partner again. The recent loss of our spouses leaves us with no illusions about what we may face down the road. Yet, we’ve decided the pleasure of loving a “special someone” is worth the pain of losing them, whether that be sooner or later. 

God’s accompanies us no matter what form our attachment to others takes. God is with us, both in our solitude and in the crucible of companionship. Even if we’ve found shared life with a mate, we experience an essential aloneness in facing our own physical decline, illness, and death itself. And if we live a more solitary lifestyle, we may still seek to be lovingly and interdependently connected to neighbors, friends, family, and helpers of other kinds.

In either path, the call to open our hearts to risk loving and being loved, is there, albeit in different forms. Unwillingness to risk and share love in some way, is tantamount to a pre-mature death, at least in a spiritual and emotional sense.  May the lives we live, witness to the truth written in Song of Solomon 8: 6 — that “love is as strong as death.” 

When he ministers to the sick, Jesus’ body becomes an instrument of healing. He touches people, breathes on them, or takes them by the hand to raise them up. Like Jesus, we communicate compassion by closing the bodily distance between us and the person in distress. We may even reach out to them with the touch of a hand or an embrace. 

During this pandemic, how unnatural it feels to care for one another by keeping our distance. We must refrain from hugging and touching, and breathing on each other! Yet reining in those natural impulses to connect at close range is one of the best gifts we give one another in this time of contagion.  

How this present exercise of restraint deepens our appreciation for what we’ve temporarily lost! We miss the richness of real face to face encounters, and our tactile bonds to other beings. As Joni Mitchell’s song lyric says: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Once these contact precautions are no longer needed, how we will welcome the opportunity to be with one another in the flesh! We may never again take for granted the gift of gathering with others in person. 

The loss we feel in this time of “contact precautions” can sensitize us to the “untouchability” some experience as they age. Older persons may receive less touch from others because they are no longer  as physically attractive. In later years, persons may live alone, or no longer have an intimate partner whose touch they can enjoy. If an elder no longer drives, they may have difficulty getting to friends who greet them with a hug, a handshake, a kindly touch, or companionable arm around the shoulder. 

Young primates, whether monkeys or humans, thrive only if they are regularly touched. Touch is necessary for our development and ongoing well-being. Do we ever outgrow our need for appropriate touch that conveys connection and care? Likely not! Though this pandemic necessitates caution about human contact, in normal times we might better have “contact encouragements.” That’s because giving and receiving regular doses of human touch contributes to our healing and wholeness as human beings. In our embodiment, appropriate touch is one of God’s good gifts to us. May the day soon come when we can once again freely reach out and touch one another!   

Whose touch are you missing and how might you “virtually” touch them, when you can’t do so physically?

In his book Consolations, David Whyte suggests the essence of gratitude is deeper than counting our blessings. Rather, gratitude is a form of attention to the gifted nature of life itself.

Whyte’s insight came to mind while watching A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the movie about Fred Rogers, played by Tom Hanks. In the movie, Mister Rogers engages others with full, appreciative attentiveness to who they are and what they’re feeling. His unhurried, focused interest leaves those who meet him feeling loved and valued.

Roger’s directness and slow pace of communication was designed to meet the needs of his pre-school TV viewers. Yet, his approach teaches us much about effective communication with mature persons. One of the common complaints of older people about medical personnel and younger family members is that they talked too fast, seem distracted, and don’t make eye contact.

Older brains process information more slowly. Thus, elders are grateful for those who speak to them slowly and distinctly, but not patronizingly. We never outgrow our need for others’ focused, face-to-face attention. It sends an unmistakeable message: you are a valuable child of God. Sitting at a dinner table at which family members were on their devices, a young boy plaintively asked: “When we’re together, can’t we just listen to each other with our whole faces?”  This Thanksgiving, at our inter-generational gatherings, let’s count our blessings! Even more, let’s embody our gratitude by giving full and appreciative attention to one another.

Whose full, appreciative attention have you received that nourished your spirit? To whom have you recently given this same gift?

 

 

Though not a soap opera fan, I still remember the Days of Our Lives’ image of the hourglass. When it was onscreen, a voice intoned: “As sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” In my fifties I bought a big hourglass to remind me that time is fleeting. I schlepped it from Connecticut to southern California and now into semi-retirement in Pennsylvania. I am still mesmerized in watching the sand flow in a thin stream from top to bottom. Witnessing the passage of the sand is a kind of meditation on time.

As I age, my relationship with time is changing. A seemingly unlimited span of time no longer stretches before me, as it did in my youth. Eight years as a hospice chaplain rid me of any lingering illusions that I had time left to procrastinate. I accompanied people decades younger than me to death’s door. It was a wake-up call! No surprise then, that it was after my mother’s death in 2017, that I wrote Still Praying After All These Years.

In my early 70’s, present moments seem more precious. They are charged with a new gravitas. More often, now, I slow my pace to savor them. But with aging, comes a tandem sense of urgency. I know in my joints, I may have only a few years left to comfortably travel. If I delay down-sizing will I have energy to tackle it in a few more years? If I don’t plan a reunion now, with people who’ve been dear to me, will they soon be dead or too sick to travel?  As my Dad used to say, while tapping his foot impatiently: “Time’s a-wasting!”

There is a tension when it comes to time. On the one hand, knowing life can change in a heartbeat, we want to truly relish what is. On the other hand, there are plans to be made to do what we can no longer put off.  Though all our times may be in God’s hands, we must still discern, with the Spirit’s help, how to wisely use the temporal span given us. Additionally, since we know not how long we have, we are also discerning how best to be in time. If in the present moment, we are always mentally living into a future we may or may not have, then we miss the gifts of here and now.

What do you notice about your relationship with time?