Fiercer, Stronger, Wiser
Each age, each stage of life has its challenges. Each offers opportunities.
Yes, life comes with joys and sorrows and challenges...and what a gift to be alive!
Today we honor our members who are 80 and more.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, Sarah and her husband Abraham both were old. Visitors came and Sarah and Abraham welcomed them with cakes and other treats. One of the visitors said, "When I return in the spring you two will have given birth to a child." Hearing that, Sarah laughed.
But, of course, as the story goes, they did have a child.
The story's metaphorical meaning surely is: no matter your age, if you're alive, there's something more to come—new perspective, new relationships, new awareness, new challenges.
Our members 80 and beyond are honest in how they see aging. Joan Swift says, "I personally am not full of enthusiasm in getting older. I am going backwards health-wise and don't seem to improve."
Joan has gone through some tough times with illness and physical weakness. She bakes loaves of bread and gives bread away. She says this is a real pleasure and hopes those who eat the bread can taste the love she bakes into each loaf.
Joan writes, "Every night I go through the list of things for which I am grateful: family, church, friends.... I think of how I can love more... give people the benefit of the doubt... look for ways to grow."
John Tucker, a first time doctor of durability says, "I don't feel fiercer, though I have never been very diplomatic or political. From the age of three I have had the tendency to tell the truth, I still do, or at least my view of it."
"I am not stronger in body and my memory is slipping...If stronger means hanging in with someone or with a commitment then I am stronger."
"I am wiser; I am more patient and compassionate. I take the long view of process,
development and history."
"In the last few years I find my softer emotions sneak up and I find my eyes teary. There are several hymns that I can not get through dry eyed... I have recently learned to meditate. I use meditation to turn off the voice in my head and go to sleep. I am trying other topics... broaden[ing] my definition of prayer."
"Letting go is not easy," John writes. "I have quieted the voices of judgment and cynicism and not turned them off...yet. My mother said she was a 'worry-wart' and I inherited that gene. I still fear 'what if this happens' and it almost never happens. I used to worry about the future and regret some of the past. I am learning to be thankful for the present moment and enjoy it..."
Another new Doctor of Durability, Patricia Brucker writes, "I find my life becomes more and more interesting as I slow down and have time to savor the beauty and love all around me. I asked my children how they thought I had changed and was happy to hear they find that I have definitely improved! I am compassionate, more secure and relaxed, and less judgmental. Perhaps I am growing into my real skin!"
Compassionate, secure, relaxed, less judgmental, growing into your self—now that's a model for living wisely!
"Challenges and promises come with aging," writes Lucy Scott. "Do I feel fiercer, stronger, wiser? Yes, sometimes, but letting go is a continuing learning process."
As with an age in life, "Surely, one size does not fit all..." Lucy says, Still "each generation has its own gifts to share, and I feel hopeful that we will use our bonus days to develop courage and dignity... leave a legacy of the heart, for nothing makes us grow old as fast as hardening of the heart, which has little to do with money, position, education or power."
"Maybe the important questions now are, 'How did my life matter? Was my time well spent? And what is worth doing now?'"
"One of the images I have drawn on many times in my life was part of my childhood as the only white child in a Native American school and community. I remember watching the Navajo women sitting at their looms carefully weaving wool threads into intricate and perfectly symmetrical patters--never exactly repeated. But there were no patterns for them to follow except those inside their heads. That image returns to me when I am puzzled about where to go from here with my life. We can trust the pattern within our hearts to age with grace, power and a plan--to nourish our body, our mind, our heart and our spirit. We need to do this for ourselves, and others need it from us. Time is precious..."
Joel Fort names the challenges of this time in his life and the responses that give them meaning. Joel Fort says, "Now in the most difficult period of my life with progressive losses of friends and physical functions, multiple pains, and many medicines, I am, as many of you are challenged to maintain courage and integrity, remain creative, and be a resource to others. The greatest power we have is the power to do good and, as Socrates said, 'the surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we appear to be.'"
To live with losses and remain courageous and creative takes fierceness and strength. To continue to believe in your power to do good is wisdom.
Martha Helming writes, "I feel mellower and more loving rather than fiercer. Rather than wiser, I have experienced a larger more inclusive and connected consciousness from which comes the understanding I need. My wish is to grow in spirit as long as I live." Maybe that's what wisdom really is—an inclusive, connected consciousness, understanding, and a desire to continue to grow.
At ninety Elizabeth DeVelbiss is grateful, she writes, for a "room with a view of the outside world and glimpses of the circle of life passing by..." She writes, "I like watching the seasons change as the big tree outside my window bursts forth in green buds, the leaves follow and during the summer it shades my room in lacy green, in the fall the rain drops dance along the leave and then in the winter they fall off, laving the tree branches exposed." Bursting buds to green leaves to bare branch: the changing seasons, beauty is in each phase of the circle of life.
Eldon Wolf writes, "Oh! what a beautiful morning! What a beautiful day! Even with aches and pains and the discomfort of crawling out of bed, a slow recovery is a reward for finding this beautiful day. This morning I give thanks... I am receiving gifts every day from the extended family at UUCB. I don't know whether I am fiercer, stronger, or even wiser. I remember those who found acceptance in their demise and I hope that I may find the same path with grace. Now it's time to charge on!"
For all this wisdom, for all this calling to live life fully, for all these elders, these durable doctors of life's experiences, we give our thanks. This community is enriched by your presence, enriched you your participation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
Fiercer, Stronger, Wiser from UU Church of Berkeley on Vimeo.
Copyright © 2010, Revs. Barbara and Bill Hamilton Holway, Rev. Jane Ramsey, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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