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.
