Aging and ________

What word are you inclined to pair with aging?

Some very common pairings may come to mind because we hear them frequently from retreat directors, university professors, noted writers and/or presenters, even consultants to religious communities. The following often-heard pairings come to mind quickly for me:

Aging and diminishment

Aging and loss

Aging and decline

Aging and illness

Aging and poor health

Aging and letting go

Just this morning I read an article by a Sister who stated her age as 57. The thesis of her piece was that as we age, we should acknowledge that we will be moving on from employment to retirement for one reason or another, and that we should do so "with grace".

The author gave several examples of signs that tell her, "I really am getting old." She notes trouble with her knee and hip; a loss in her hearing acuity; her need for trifocals. She ends that listing by noting, "I can still do everything I used to do, but I do notice I'm slowing a bit."

 Ageing is indisputably accompanied by physical decline. However, physical decline does not define us! Our personhood is not circumscribed by our physical decline. Additionally, physical changes are uniquely individual.  As Ashton Applewhite writes in her book, "This Chair Rocks", when you see one 80-year-old, you're seen one 80-year-old.

Our culture has oppressed us with the social construct of equating aging with decline. I would say to this Sister, "With your 57 years of life, 57 years of experience, what do you experience within yourself beyond the physical changes that you note?"  I can imagine Sister could tell me of her long-term, meaningful friendships she has garnered over the years, both inside her community and beyond, and how they have enriched her life. She would acknowledge the deepened skills, insights and nuances of navigating her ministerial role as a high school classroom teacher that only years and experience can provide.  She might be aware that because of her life experiences, she reads a novel, or the newspaper, or a biography with much more insight than she was capable of twenty or thirty years ago.

Gene Cohen, in his book, "The Mature Mind: The Power of the Aging Brain" depends on years of research around aging to reach his conclusion that we must turn our present paradigm of aging on its head! Cohen doesn't just give us a "positive" view of aging, in the sense that what he says is said to make us feel good.  Yes, it does make us feel good. The important factor is that his work and his conclusions are based on data!

Another Sister spoke about aging in my reading this morning. She sees with a different lens, not the social construct of aging and decline.  Sister Mercedes L. Casas Sanchez, FSpS , of Mexico, addressed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in August and her comments included this:  The nuns (and it applies to every old person) "walk like trees loaded with fruit, bent over with fruitfulness."

 "Bent over with fruitfulness" Ponder that.