Giving Back

Living in the second half of life, I no longer have to prove that I or my group is the best, that my ethnicity is superior, that my religion is the only one that God loves, or that my role and place in society deserve superior treatment. I am not preoccupied with collecting more goods and services; quite simply, my desire and effort—every day—is to pay back, to give back to the world a bit of what I have received. I now realize that I have been gratuitously given to—from the universe, from society, and from God. I try now, as Elizabeth Seton said, “to live simply so that others can simply live.”

Adapted from Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, p. 121
(also available as an audiobook)

Spirituality in Midlife and Beyond

Spirituality is all about knowing that there is more to life than meets the eye. It seems to me that that is one of the lessons we learn approximately around midlife, and certainly as we age. In fact, we all celebrate anniversaries and birthdays, so, in our consciousness, there must be a deep knowing that it is a good thing to move on in year. Where it counts in life, we actually grow stronger as we age. We usually develop greater spirituality and a clear sense of personal worth and moral strength even if our bodies seem to not have the same stamina they once did.

Ageism, the devaluation of older people, the devaluation of people because of their age, is a sore misrepresentation of the truth. It only happens when we value folly over wisdom. Not to say that young people can’t be wise – but there is something to be said of experience. If we see life only as a pursuit of ambition and the ‘get more syndrome’ or ‘get ahead’ and accumulate money, which are appropriate goals for the young, we are missing the gifts of long-term devotion and commitment and the significance they can bring to life.

Major life milestone are not just about the amount of time we spend in one place; the positions we have held or even the things we have accomplished but they allow us to celebrate the insights we have had and the way we have changed to become more of who we were meant to be. These celebrations remind us that life is good and that it really does get better as we learn to let it be.
Robert Browning was speaking of this truth when he penned:

“Grow old along with me,
the best is yet to be,
the last of life —
for which the first
was made.”

When we celebrate life’s transitions and milestone, we recognize what true happiness is about in our lives. We see the difference between ambition and meaning and success and significance. Each year we celebrate calls forth the triumph of the human spirit as a reminder of the things we have all overcome on our way to this wisdom.

I remember once hearing a Buddhist story of a man fleeing from a tiger. As he was falling over a cliff, he was saved by catching hold of a small strawberry plant growing between the rocks on the side of the cliff. With the tiger above him and the great chasm below, he clung to the bush with one hand, stopped for a brief moment and then, with the other hand picked the most luscious strawberry. It’s told that it was the best he had ever eaten in his life.

Hopefully, we learn as we age to enjoy life more. We begin to savor the moments and the days and to spend our time on things that are more meaningful to us. We sometimes begin to be more present to what is and often experience it as if we had never before.

When we look on those whom we admire who are older than us, we learn that life teaches us not to be afraid and that it will continue to give us opportunities to grow, and to change. And, so we make a daily decision to keep on living. In the words of Gelett Burgess: “If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”

As we age, we learn some important lessons
It really is the little things that count;

There is nothing to fear, as Roosevelt so aptly said, ‘but fear itself’,

And if we truly open our eyes, we might even see strawberries growing all around us.

Midlife Transition Spirituality

How middle age invites women into the life of the spirit.
By Marilyn Sewell

When children leave home, women often ask themselves, “What now?” Whether or not we have raised children, we begin to count the years and ask, “How much time is left? What is pulling at me? What can I yet become?” Those of us who are at all reflective begin to wonder what we have learned in the first half of life that will sustain and direct us in the second half. In the process, women often come to a deeper sense of self.

In this youth-oriented society, no one likes to think of themselves as “aging.” Growing older is particularly problematic for women: We begin to experience how difficult it is to maintain our equilibrium in a culture that idolizes youth and beauty, and in fact seems unable to conceptualize beauty without youth. But at midlife, inevitably, our bodies will begin to slow and then all too soon to creak and groan like the rigging of a ship that has seen better days. Our intellect loses its keen edge. We are forced into an encounter with the hardest of human realities: We come to understand, not just intellectually but existentially, that we are going to die.

It is this acknowledgment of our absolute lack of power over existence that invites us into the life of the spirit. It is a necessary and exacting gift. It offers the opportunity to ground ourselves in meaning that goes deeper than the skin. It awakens us and allows us to give deference to the Mystery, to that which we can never grasp and yet which ultimately defines us.

As I collected readings for my new anthology, Breaking Free: Women of Spirit at Midlife and Beyond
(Beacon Press, 2004), I discovered that finding pieces of writing that deal with spirituality in the mature woman was difficult. I suspect that writing about one’s spiritual life at any age is difficult—but at least in my own experience, the older I get, the less I know and the more I have to rest in faith. Mystery is elusive, to say the least, and as I am continually humbled in the face of it, it seems almost arrogant to try to put into words the vastness of which I am beginning to feel a part. To speak, to write, to use words at all is always to narrow and define something as this and not that, at least in our dualistic culture. To tie words to Spirit is to diminish its power, to deny its Oneness. We search for metaphor or, more often, we simply fall into silence.

Then there is the question of intimacy and revelation. What could be more intimate than one’s relationship to the Sacred? It may be too close, too unique to reveal to others. We instinctively pull back from such expression, as if to touch it would make it disappear. It’s the same reason that writers do not like to speak of their work in progress. As something works its way into our consciousness, it needs space, not definition.

So women writers at midlife often do not hit the subject straight on. But they have arrived at a place of accepting more deeply who they are, and they are living out of a kind of radical authenticity. That is how I define the often used and misused word spirituality—a flowering into the person you were meant to be, as you move closer to the Source of Life.

Women can be beautiful at any stage of life. As we age, our aliveness shines forth from the depths of spirit, if we dare to go there. Maturity can bring a sweet kind of joy, as we come to know how deeply connected we are with all that is, as we understand and accept how much we have to give.

Recommended Movies for Midlife Transition and Spirituality

The Game (Michael Douglas)
The Matrix Movie 1 (Keanu Reeves)
What The Bleep Do We Know?
The Thirteenth Floor (Craig Bierko, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Gretchen Mol)
The Legend Of Bagger Vance (Will Smith)
Purple Rose Of Cairo (Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels)
Field Of Dreams (Kevin Costner)
National Treasure (Nicholas Cage)
City Of Angels (Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan)
The Truman Show (Jim Carrey)
Pleasantville (Tobey Maguire)
Touching The Void (Joe Simpson and Simon Yates)
Starman (Jeff Bridges)
August Rush (Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
Groundhog Day (Bill Murray)
Noble House (Pierce Brosnan, TV Mini-Series on DVD)
Sliding Doors (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Illusion (Kirk Douglas)
Wag The Dog (Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro)
Capricorn One (James Brolin and Elliott Gould)
Last Action Hero (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
The Lathe Of Heaven (2 versions: 1 with Bruce Davison, 2000; 2nd with James Caan,
2002 — both are interesting and supportive)
Noble House (Pierce Brosnan, TV mini-series on DVD — book by same name by James
Clavell is also supportive)
Vanilla Sky (Tom Cruise)
Powder (Mary Steenburgen and Sean Patrick Flattery)
The Nines (Hope Davis, Ryan Reynolds)