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Friends United Meeting |
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January/February 2004
Becoming Well-Aged
By Amy Gomez
Today, I had an echocardiogram. My doctor seems to think he heard a murmur in my heart sounds. I had not heard my heart murmuring, except to remind me that falling in love is ageless. I knew my eyes needed new glasses, so his concern about my heart surprised me. Why was I surprised? It's not like I've forgotten how old I am. With pride nearing amazement, I brag how high I've climbed through time. I've reached the observation deck of a lifetime span.
From this vantage point, I notice many of us past middle-age are increasingly frantic. Why else is the business of telling us we need not feel or look — or even become old — doing so well? There are many desperate 50-year-olds out there. I must concede I, too, feel the pressure, steadily gazing at death — an unseen, yet constant companion, by now. Instead of being adamant that anti-wrinkle creams, plastic surgery and a new diet can relieve my fear of death, I realize its valuable purpose. Yes, fear has its good purposes, always, if you carefully search.
We are looking in the wrong direction for peace of mind and an acceptance of the aging process. We are being distracted because that is where money is to be made. Convinced we need to change our appearance, we will never outrun our fear. As long as we run, we continue to seek a way to turn back our biological clock. Products and services dangle in our line of sight. They are eagerly, desperately snatched and an industryÑa war against aging — is valiantly waged. We are being exploited, but willingly. It's the price we paid for freeing ourselves, as a generation, from our corporate responsibility for bequeathing a society, an earth that is in livable condition to our descendants.
Elders in traditional societies are triumphant. They flaunt their baldness and fluff their gray manes. Heaven help someone who carelessly comments they don't look their age — an insult for justified wrath! What do tribal oldsters have that we moderns don't? With every breath, every step, they exude satisfaction with the simple, yet essential pleasure of working to leave their community, their society, in proper operating order. Each age group learns its unique role and, as well, teaches it to the younger ones coming up. The machinery of tradition is well oiled and spinning smoothly. The cycle of life brings forth babies from couples, children are guided and elders consulted. The fit bend their capable backs to the physical and spiritual support of all.
We have many things here they do not have. We have labor-saving devices, with virtual minds of their own, which mysteriously seduce us into laboring for them. Things, things, things — things cannot bring us contentment with age, for that can only be bought with service to others. And how can we find time to serve each other when we must spend our hours buying items from an endless list of things purported to radiate the peace of mind we seek?
We are all weary, yet none lay down their burden of things, frightened to be found a failure. As we frantically tread the mill that grinds our life's moments into currency used to replace our aging possessions with newer models, the earth turns. As we study and investigate ways to possibly lift our sagging flesh and spirits, we neglect our real work — work that might bring us pride in our signs of long life. Why can't we re-focus on the pressing needs of those who are ready to inherit this earth, our societies and our communities? Perhaps we have grown into selfishness. Could it be that selfishness, corporate narcissism, is carefully nurtured and nourished by our modern individualist lifestyle? As we gulp down and waste precious resources future generations will need, arenÕt we just being selfish?
Traditional elders have an advantage over us. They've had a lifetime to foster selfless action and habits of generosity, while we were trained to become increasingly self-absorbed, with license to indulge in luxury as the years accumulate. Tribal elders grow vision that opens up to embrace the needs and concerns of all around them. Graciously, they occupy a scope of influence that encompasses all matters under the sun. In the end — their end — satisfied they have performed tasks required of them at each stage, each step of their lives, they gratefully take a bow and stride into that dark night of the id. The power of death to chill the soul can only be overcome by a life well lived, firm in the conviction that one has used all one has been given, to fit the world for the next generation to step confidently into it.
What might we do to deal with palpitations that come with the sudden recognition that one can continuously see the exit door? We can shed habits that misdirect our attention to things that do not matter, that cannot bring us peace. We can recklessly spend ourselves, our efforts, our talents, our time, our resources with selfless abandon and squander them on — not ourselves, but on the needs of youth and children who will inhabit our cities, our planet, much longer than we will. We must ask ourselves these questions:
Will they have clean water to drink, pure air to breathe, rich soil to
farm?
Will disease be rampant or held in check?
Will overpopulation threaten the stability of their world or will nations
co-exist with respect and justice for all?
Will war be abolished, a topic for history books, or will weapons be required
for their survival?
What world do we choose to leave for the future?
"Beware of all covetousness; for life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? Which of you, by being anxious, can add a cubit to your span of life? If then, you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Luke 12:15,20,25,26,34
Amy Gomez is a regular attender at Tampa Friends Meeting, Florida. She has previously written for Quaker Life.
Copyright (c) 2004 Friends United Meeting
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