When I first retired, I didn’t worry about aging; I believed the adage (you are as young as you feel), and because I felt young, I was young!
I was often surprised when I was asked about my grandchildren. Why did anyone assume I had grandchildren? “After all,” I thought, “I am young – too young to be a grandparent.” Of course, I was not too young, and I did have grandchildren. My questioner was simply responding to the physical signs of my aging, signs that I largely ignored.
Another person who noticed my aging was a dear friend who, on the occasion of my 80th birthday, gifted me with a little book. I did not realize, when I opened her gift, what an impact it would have on me, helping me to accept where I am in the aging process, giving me the tools to understand that process and, most important, reasons to be grateful for it.
I echo Richard Foster’s endorsement from the back cover: “I thank God for Aging Faithfully…Alice Fryling lovingly leads us through the ups and down, the losses and the treasures we experience in the interior chambers of our souls throughout aging.”
The surprise wrapped in this very slim book was that, as Foster mentions, treasures can be found in the aging process.
Freyling begins, in chapter one, with a reflection on her own experiences, first as an interested bystander watching her husband struggle with his retirement, and then as one who faces her own struggles. She realizes, “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.” She continues, “We probably think we can handle retirement. But old age?” (2).
We are, she suggests, moving into what she calls “liminal space”: that space between active employment and moving into successful retirement – that space filled with unknowns. It is that space where we question how to find a new identity, how to find productive activities – how to continue to matter.
Her answer comes in the image of a pear tree – a symbol of the aging process, with its shedding of leaves and dormancy through the winter, only to produce beautiful flowers and, more important, fruit. In this chapter she answers a question I have struggled with often in these posts: how can I be productive in this retirement? Her answer is profound: it is not productivity that matters; it is fruitfulness.
She explains the difference: “Productivity results from all the tasks I accomplish. Fruitfulness comes from within and includes nontangible ways I relate to others” (10).
Freyling also uses another metaphor for aging: wine. She shares two Biblical passages: in one, Christ turns water into the best wine, saved for last, at a wedding; in the second, He teaches a lesson on new wineskins. The author uses these passages to explain what gifts we receive in aging – the best gifts saved for last – and the new wineskins “in our souls to contain new attitudes toward life” (13)
I reacted to chapter two, “Experiencing New Birth as We Age,” in much the same way that Nicodemus responded to Christ’s admonition to be “born again.” He and I both asked, “How is that possible?” Now in my 80’s, I believed my personality, my beliefs, my self, were set, unchangeable. Her answer is to point out ways that we change in these later days, becoming more spiritually aware and, through that awareness, to change, to experience a new birth. As part of this new birth, she explains, we are able to find new ways to listen, to “be still and know that [He] is God.”
In this chapter, she explores an important idea: the presence of our “false selves” – the roles we play – perhaps not even realizing that we grasp these identities to please others, to feel better about ourselves, even to attempt to please God. The false self, full of pride, “is the person we wish we were, the person we think we should be but aren’t” (31). In this time of new birth, we can become the “true self” – the true self “lives freely. It does not need to control things in order to protect a self-image” (31).
For me the companion chapters three and four were the most eye-opening and valuable. Chapter three, “Holy Losses, Holy Invitations” meets head-on with the inevitable losses we face as we age. The losses most noticeable with aging are the physical ones: wrinkled skin, lower energy and stamina, aches and pains. These can be difficult to deal with, but she explores another loss that can be more devastating: “I am also losing my sense of who I am, of what validates me” (11). She goes on to explain the value of grieving these losses, rather than attempting to downplay or ignore them: “Grief unembraced,” she writes, “is not transformational” (59). When we go through the stages of grief for our losses, “by God’s grace, we move toward acceptance of what is happening to us and begin to find peace” (61).
Within this chapter is one of the treasures that Foster mentions: Our losses are “holy invitations.” If experiencing a new birth in our aging was a difficult concept, the understanding that a loss is a holy invitation is an even more difficult one. But the two concepts are related: “One of the purposes of old age is to be renewed inwardly.” God invites us, as our bodies “diminish” to welcome His “grace of inward renewal” (61).
Chapter Four, “Letting Go,” extends the ideas of losses and invitations. Fryling writes, “As we notice the losses, God invites us to let go” (71). She explores those things, ideas, and attitudes that are no longer useful, and encourages us to accept the invitation to let go. And she adds another unexpected treasure: “It is possible to let go of parts of our life with joy” (73).
The false self appears in this chapter, too – it is that self that wants to hold, for example, the ego-gratification we have received from our previous employment or from the gifts we have been given. But, as we age, we obtain a new self-awareness, and we are able to let go of these false-self messages. We also can become more aware of God’s presence and His plan for this period of our lives. She challenges us to look more deeply at our own hearts, to see the changes that are occurring there as we let go of false beliefs, “our old perspectives, hopes, and expectations” (95), and honor our “true selves.”
In the final chapter, “Fear and Peace,” Freyling confronts the fear that “we come face-to-face with in a way most of us have not known before” (102). She lists a variety of fears that we face, including illness, financial problems, and becoming more vulnerable, but she recognizes that each of us experience fear in very personal ways.
The questions she asks, then, is “how can we live well with our fears?” (102). Her answer, and one that she investigates and explains through the rest of the chapter, is from 1 John 4:18: “Perfect love drives out fear.”
She shows how this love from God can transform our fears; she explores the fears of being useless, of being lonely, and of death. She delves too into the issue of our unresolved brokenness. And she gives the reader instructions on how to “be still and know that [He] is God,” (Psalm 46). Through this process, fear changes to peace. “This,” she writes, “is the holy invitation to all of us as we pursue spiritual transformation on the journey of aging” (120).
I was comforted by her perceptions – that my doubts and fears about aging are shared by others, but also of the hope and the treasures that can be found in this process. I hope that, if you, my reader, are also struggling with aging, you will open this tiny book and find new optimism and peace.