Over the years the genesis of many of my reflections have been snippets I have gleaned from a newsletter Martin Marty used to publish and which I truly miss called Context. For some reason I’ve saved many of the issues. While rummaging through my files I found a piece in which he listed six reflective quotations about growing older They are found below with my reflection on each of the reflections.
George Eliot: "It's never too late to be what you might have been." That is, unless we die before we get started. We might not be able to do what we wanted to do long ago or even want to do today, but we can always be or become the person we might have been had we begun earlier. It is very tempting to believe that we are too old to change but the grace of God knows no time limit.
May Sarton: "Old age is not an illness, it is a timeless ascent. As power diminishes, we grow toward the light." We also become lighter. As we age, we get rid of a lot of the garbage we have been carrying around thinking it was important at the time when, in truth, all it did was hold us back from growing up and growing closer to our God and to one another.
Lyn Hall: "We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves." We discard all the phoniness we had wrapped ourselves in trying to be who we were not or who we wanted to be or tried to be for whatever reason we tried and simply allow ourselves to be who we are. We discover that we have wasted a lot of time, money and energy in the pursuit of foolishness.
Dorothy Sayers: "Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age." No one in his or her right mind wants to be 16 or 26 or 36 or whatever age we once were again. The best age to be is the age we are right now and to live it to the fullest as best we can, gracefully with grace. Besides, those who live in the past, which is dead and gone, are not really living. They are simply vegetating through life, which is no way to live.
Carl Jung: "Aging people should know that their lives are not mounting and unfolding but that an inexorable inner process forces the contraction of life. For a young person it is almost a sin -- and certainly a danger -- to be too much preoccupied with himself; but for the aging person it is a duty and a necessity to give serious attention to himself." We discover, as we grow older, that had we paid more attention to ourselves, especially to our bodies, we might feel better. Now we have to think about our bodies and souls, not to the detriment of others, but because we have no other choice.
And finally, for what it is worth, and it may not be worth much except that it comes from two former Yankees: the one and only Casey Stengel who opined, "I'll never make the mistake of turning 70 again." Casey was Yogi Berra's manager and mentor, Yogi, the one who observed, "It ain't over till it's over" and "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Need I say any more?
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