Tag: aging

Years ago, when I was about to leave graduate school with a Ph.D. in hand but no job in sight, a roommate gave me a book titled, “The Shape of Winter Trees.” When I received it, the book inspired me with hope during an anxious period in my life. And winter trees still encourage me when I take time to contemplate them.

A lot of people don’t like to talk about aging and particularly the way it ends in death. I view aging as an arc, a beautiful rainbow (sometimes double, if I’m lucky), from horizon to horizon, a full arc across the sky, bringing beauty and hope.

For Christmas, my 80 year-old-brother gave me, soon to turn 77, Priscilla Long’s "Dancing with the Muse in Old Age."  A celebration of artists and others who do great work in their later years, Long’s book includes a short discussion on “A Spiritual Life” in which she posits that “in old age many persons become more spiritual.”

Besides symbolizing God’s eternal promise, the rainbow’s physical and spiritual beauty can be viewed as a metaphor for how we humans age. As we go through life, we admire rainbows from afar, pure light scattering myriad hues through crystal prisms of raindrops. The naked eye detects only bright colors, distinct yet inseparable.

She has now written a second book, "Aging with Wisdom: Reflections, Stories & Teachings," which is filled with spiritual wisdom drawn from Christianity, Buddhism and other religious traditions.

It is as it should be that none of us is born knowing the story ahead of time.

Life is sucking him into his comfy chair, locked away in his old house, now even walking is hazardous to his health.