On a July afternoon in Southern Germany in 2022, as a few in our travel group waited for a bus departure after visiting Neuschwanstein Castle, we were given the opportunity to witness a lady embracing the idea of Aging Gratefully. On her third adventure to see the Passion Play at Oberammergau (which only occurs every 10 years), Louise Lynch graciously allowed us to walk down the street to fill her water bottle. With a chuckle as she sat down on a bench to wait and rest, Louise offered something along these lines, “Well, I guess it finally is my turn. I’ve become the elderly one on the trip that needs to allow others to help her.” Yes, Louise, it is your turn, because for years, you were the one willing to serve those in Emerging Elderhood on the Union University Alumni trips.
Over the years I’ve been blessed to witness, in various areas and times in my life, those who honor God and others in the later seasons of life. Whether it’s Union alumni, faculty, and staff, members in Campers on Mission, family, friends, or others in the community, these people have modeled for me a desirable path forward in life. In fact, it was the need to express my gratitude to retiring COM members that was the impetus for starting this blog. Seeing what it means to flourish in each and every Season of Life with people engaging in Encore Careers, I was encouraged to investigate how to coach Emerging Adults to follow their lead. Cultivating healthy habits, like serving others and living a life with purpose and meaning, truly demonstrates what it means to live The Good Life.
Alice Fryling shares, “All of us, as we age, retire. We retire not just from jobs but from relationships, ways of thinking, and how we think about ourselves. We move on. We no longer find validation in activities and tasks that have been important to us for decades. We can no longer do the things we used to do. The next generation is doing those things better than we can. To become older, then, means we retire, whether we’re getting paid for our work or not.” Sharing again from Aging Faithfully, “God invites us to flourish in our senior years [Psalm 92], knowing that we are still producing sap, and that this sap will still produce fruit in our lives, for the sake of others. As we grow into the senior season of life, we will be called on to make choices about how to nourish the trees that we are becoming.”
To Age Gratefully, Fryling shares, “We need people around us to love us and to help us,” as Louise and others are allowing. “We need people who listen well to us as we experience new birth in our old age.” Experiencing the aging process means traveling through Liminal Spaces where we are required to recalculate our paths and figure out What’s Next. It also means we sometimes must walk through Silent Grief, not the grief of losing those we love, which is also common, but of grieving lost abilities, dreams, and the ways we’ve found purpose and meaning, which is often challenging to articulate. So, in my opinion, these exemplars who model what it means to Age Gratefully, also demonstrate how to grieve biblically. “The Bible encourages us to look honestly at our grief and our losses…Grief is a stark reality of human lives.”
In closing, I offer that younger generations consider how they can assist us in Aging Gratefully, and Fryling expresses this so well. “As we age, we pass milestones along the way, but this side of heaven we never make the epilogical leap to living ‘happily ever after.’ We need loving companions to help us navigate each season of the aging process, with its Liminal Spaces, its rough spots, and its challenging choices. This is a different kind of companionship from social interactions, which are also very important. But this kind of spiritual companionship can be a lifeline for those we love as they age. It can come from friendship, family relationships, spiritual direction, or pastoral care.”
How can you be challenged today to help others Age Gratefully? Please consider sharing your answers in the comments below.
References:
Waldinger, R. & Schulz, M. (2023). The good life: Lessons from the world’s longest scientific study of happiness. [Kindle version]. Simon & Schuster.
Flourishing @ Life 