Sister Joan Chittister's "The Gift of Years" is a good book but today's chapter was better than good. It is called "Relationships." Here are excerpts:
At its core, life is not about things, it is about relationships.
When the relationships we forge as we go begin to disappear, our own life changes. We know then what it is to be abandoned, to be a little less impervious to feeling than we thought we were.
Now it is not things we need, it is understanding we crave. It is understanding that draws us out of ourselves into the earthenware vessel of new life.
We watch the ones we love leave us, and we find ourselves at another crossover moment in time. What do we do now? Go on alone? Stop and withdraw into ourselves? Risk the chance of becoming a friend again? It is a life-changing question. It is a soul-changing answer. And, for fear we might miss the lesson of it, the pain of it is everywhere.
A world built on youthful sex, on the procreative dimensions of marriage, saw something obscene about the whole notion of intense sexual and loving relationships among older people. The primary purpose of marriage had for so long been defined as child-rearing that the role of adult relationships, especially in later life, had been dismissed.
First, they have to deal with the haunting presence of relationships they have lost to death or distance. For all of us, the dying take a part of us into the grave with them-like conversations that can never be completed, dreams that can never be fulfilled. But for the elderly, the death of spouses, of loved ones, of friends, takes even more away-the memories, the sense of self, the feeling of community. If truth were known, too often the dead take the energy of the living, too.
True, most seniors are healthy, alert, and totally functional. But it requires effort and energy to make new friends now. And is it even worth the time? Friendship, after all, let alone love, takes a great deal of tending, a lot of talking, more getting-to-know-you time than we ourselves may have left. So why bother?
Second, older people struggle with the effort it takes to make new friends, new companions, in their own world, which is becoming ever more removed from the faster-moving world around them.
True, most seniors are healthy, alert, and totally functional. But it requires effort and energy to make new friends now. And is it even worth the time? Friendship, after all, let alone love, takes a great deal of tending, a lot of talking, more getting-to-know-you time than we ourselves may have left. So why bother?
The temptation to disengage is severe. And yet, our need for understanding, for comfort, for the sense of presence that comes with the voice at the other end of a phone call is greater than ever. How is this shell of a life ever to be filled again? And if it is not filled, is there any real life yet to be had?
The fact is that relationships are the alchemy of life. They turn the dross of dailiness into gold. They make human community real. They provide what we need and wait in turn for us to give back. They are a sign of the presence of a loving God in life. There is no such thing at any stage of human development as life without relationships. In this later stage then, the only uncertainty is whether we will decide to live inside ourselves, alone with our past relationships, or trust that the life made glorious by others in the past can be made glorious again-by new meetings, new moments, new spirit. For that to happen, we ourselves need to reach out first. We need to make ourselves interesting again. We need to learn again how to invite people into our lives-in to watch the game or play cards together, in to eat or read books together. Then, we need to make the effort to go out to places where people our own age gather, as well as to events where the generations mix and the fun comes from meeting new people and talking about different things.
Joan Chittister. The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (p. 79-83). Kindle Edition.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
