Age Gratefully

Our moral obligation is to stay as well as we can, to remain active, to avoid abusing our bodies, to do the things that interest us and to enrich the lives of those around us. Our spiritual obligation is to age well; so that others who meet us may have the courage, the spiritual depth, to do the same.

—Sister Joan Chittister

Introduction

If you want to look younger, live longer, or even try to defy death altogether, a quick online search will offer an endless array of supplements, skin products, and procedures. In the United States, there’s a sharp increase in cosmetic surgery that’s intended to reverse the signs of aging but also in something dubbed “prejuvenation” — procedures designed to prevent signs of aging before they occur. While there has long been generalized worry about “getting old,” it seems there’s now widespread concern about simply getting old-er. By no means does everyone buy into the anti-aging narratives, but they’re an unequivocal sign of the broad cultural conversation and pressure.

At the same time, we’ve all heard these familiar sayings: Beauty is on the inside, age is just a number, 50 is the new 30, with age comes wisdom, these wrinkles tell a story. Add your own here! These are good quotes for birthday cards and refrigerator magnets; they’re not wrong, but they’re not complete. Aging is always a mix of possibility, celebrating, remembering, and relinquishing. And while we never know how many remaining days we have, there’s typically a much longer road ahead when we’re 25 than when we’re 80. What matters is how we conceive of aging, and living gratefully offers light for the path.

Br. David Steindl-Rast reminds us that in every moment, both the good and the challenging, there’s opportunity to be discovered if we’re paying attention. When we apply this to aging, every birthday — whether turning 27, 52, or 89 — can be viewed as a reminder to ask ourselves, “What is the opportunity here? What is the gift of this particular time in my life? What is possible that has never been possible before?” The answers will be wildly different across the decades, but the power of the questions doesn’t fade, and asking them inches us closer to wholeness. Oprah Winfrey writes, “Every year should teach you something valuable; whether you get the lesson is up to you. Every year brings you closer to expressing your whole and healed self. I celebrate that. Honor it. Hold it in reverence. And I’m grateful for every age I’m blessed to become.”

As a practice, living gratefully challenges us to continually expand and deepen our perspective — to truly see one another, to be in awe of the night sky, to appreciate running water, to love more deeply. When we practice this kind of perspective expansion for many years, aging can no longer be misunderstood as a diminishment of the self. Instead, we can see it as an enlargement of the heart and mind. Aging is actually the key to perspective and insight. Each day and each year, we add layers of experience and understanding to the library of our lives. There is no other way to get this than to live another day, which is another way of saying “getting older.”

Does all of this mean that we don’t have to let go of some things as we age? Does it mean there aren’t losses? Of course not. But amidst them, there’s an invitation to savor what’s possible at the particular age we find ourselves in this moment. Creams and procedures are available, yes, but so is the decision to age with presence, curiosity, and a shot at increased wisdom and contentment. Remembering that the chance to be alive at all is an extraordinary gift can shift our attention from how to turn back the clock toward how to live well right here and now, regardless of our age and how much longer we are here.

What is one gift of the age that you are right now?

How does remembering the basic tenet of living gratefully — life is a gift — shape how you think about aging?

Poem

A House Called Tomorrow

by Alberto Ríos

You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—

You are a hundred wild centuries

And fifteen, bringing with you

In every breath and in every step

Everyone who has come before you,

All the yous that you have been,

The mothers of your mother,

The fathers of your father.

If someone in your family tree was trouble,

A hundred were not:

The bad do not win—not finally,

No matter how loud they are.

We simply would not be here

If that were so.

You are made, fundamentally, from the good.

With this knowledge, you never march alone.

You are the breaking news of the century.

You are the good who has come forward

Through it all, even if so many days

Feel otherwise. But think:

When you as a child learned to speak,

It’s not that you didn’t know words—

It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,

And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.

From those centuries we human beings bring with us

The simple solutions and songs,

The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies

All in service to a simple idea:

That we can make a house called tomorrow.

What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,

Is ourselves. And that’s all we need

To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.

Look back only for as long as you must,

Then go forward into the history you will make.

Be good, then better. Write books. Cure disease.

Make us proud. Make yourself proud.

And those who came before you? When you hear thunder,

Hear it as their applause.