The Aging Process

“I will go up to the altar of God
to sing songs of gratitude,
for God gives joy in youth,
joy in middle age
and the greatest joy in old age.

I go joyfully up to God’s holy altar,
not in the chains of obligation,
bowing, foot-dragging dreary, to do some duty,
but to dance drunk in gratitude
before the Source, the Fountain of Joy.

Thank you, O God, for theft proof joy
and ageless idealism.
Thank you for the joy of work
well and honestly done
for the easy yoke of obligations
that are embraced out of love.
Thank you, too, for the joy of wisdom,
gleaned from a glossary
of many mistakes and errors.

I will go up to the altar of God
who gives joy in youth,
in middle years and in old age”

A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon

We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That might just be the central message of how spiritual growth happens; yet nothing in us wants to believe it….

If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.

It becomes sort of obvious once you say it out loud. In fact, I would say that the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy of the good. Perfection is a mathematical or divine concept, goodness is a beautiful human concept that includes us all.

From Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,
pp. xxii-xxiii
Used with permission of Jossey-Bass (publisher

I offer this poem as a reflection on the Spirituality of Aging:

A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,–act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.

Do you find yourself asking the deeper-scarier-questions as you make your way through middle age and get closer to the last act? Well, you’re not alone. But as a member of the baby boomer generation-the group that famously questioned authority-old-time religion might not be for you. So what does being spiritual mean?

Host Robert Lipsyte gives his personal definition of spirituality and then sits down with the experts. Susan McFadden, professor of psychology at University of Wisconsin and co-author of New Directions in the Study of Late-Life Religiousness and Spirituality, speaks out for the spiritual side of anti-establishment Boomers who may not be religious but do a lot of good. Rabbi Marc Disick of Temple Sinai in Stamford, Connecticut, agrees that religion aside, God is what happens between people in a community. The most spiritually supportive thing we can do for older people, he says, is make them feel that their wisdom and years count for something. Reverend Jim Forbes, Senior Minister Emeritus at Riverside Church in Manhattan, adds that the vulnerability of old age can best be remedied with a community that truly values its older members. Reaching out to others is the real spirit in action, the panelists all agree.

Lipsyte next turns to a take on spirituality from the East. Though he’s the blond-haired, blue-eyed dad of Uma Thurman, Columbia University Professor Robert Thurman is also an ordained Buddhist monk whose books include Inner Revolution and Infinite Life. But Lipstye wants to know, can you really teach “old dog” baby boomers the Buddhist “tricks” of patience and common sense?

Don’t you dare call him spiritual! Air America radio host Lionel offers his distinctly non-holier-than-thou riff on all that sweet talk we use to avoid facing the sour facts about getting old.

Listen now by clicking here…