Endings

This series on Ageing began with basically factual information, got more personal as I shared some of my moans about ageing, but now perhaps should come to an end.

It’s a common observation that whereas no one spoke freely about sex at one time (I am not sure when that was!), these days the forbidden subject is death. I think that prohibition – or embarrassment – may be less so than it was, say, forty years ago. However, much of the prevailing culture in the west originates amongst younger people for whom death is a distant prospect, and one so far into the future that for them it is not worth bothering about.

Older people can bother about it a great deal, and whereas the prevailing attitude towards death was once influenced by faith in an after-life, for many people that is no longer the case. Moreover the process of dying is now often prolonged by a medical culture that refuses to consider the moral argument for euthanasia. When we do think about our own ending we may be haunted by the thought of a life prolonged at the expense of all the faculties that make life worth living. ‘What happens after I die?’ may now be less important for many people than ‘Shall I manage my death?’

The BBC did a TV programme in March, hosted by Esther Ranzten which had the startling title ‘A Good Death’. It had been well researched, was full of personal anecdotes and as the name suggests, faced honestly the finality of death but saw it positively as something to prepare for. There is still a BBC page on the internet under the name of the programme that is worth looking at.

No one can be sure of how our life will end. The hardest thing about death for me will be parting from my beloved family. Of course I don’t know the circumstances in which that will happen, but when it does I hope that I shall die gladly and gratefully as I release them from any claim I may have on them, and leave them with my trust and love.

The past can look after itself. We can be calm about our unknown future. And live joyfully in the present.

Bryan

Spirituality and Meaning

I have been looking at MacKinlay’s book, ‘The Spiritual Dimension of Ageing’ again. Some of her informants were church-goers and found a connection between their active religion and their inward spirituality, each nurturing the other. But others had neither faith nor religious practice but were still searching for meaning in life and finding it in different ways.

She says that amongst most of her informants a love of nature or creation was important. Some spoke of the joy of gardening and of being able to go to the mountains or the sea. One woman who had a deep relationship with God found meaning however from trees and places like the Botanical Gardens ‘where you can get away from people’, whilst another said ‘ I think I’m conscious of creation around me and beauty around me, certainly in people, my friends, I see all these things as good.’ Another woman found meaning in being out in the wilderness, One of her greatest joys was putting her feet on the Antarctic for the first time, ‘an incredible emotional and spiritual experience for her’, she said.

Others found meaning in music and art and in the company of friends and because of the leisure they now enjoyed were able to reflect with pleasure on the importance of their relationships and the deep influence the creative arts have had on their lives.

Mackinlay juggles the concept of meaning in life with a very flexible definition of spirituality and found in her research that many of her informants were facing the fact that inevitably there will be an end to our lives (which until now we have not acknowledged in these blogs). The people she questioned admitted to all sorts of feelings in this respect, including anxiety, joyful anticipation, but also fear. Most people seemed to be reconciled to a conclusion that none of us can avoid. Amongst most of her in-depth interviews there was a common acceptance that no one wanted to die alone and, even amongst those of Christian faith, an agnostic attitude to what may or may not happen after death.

A bit more about the ending time in our next blog, which I think will need to be our last one in a series that began almost exactly eight months ago.

Bryan

Energy

….or the lack of. It’s what happens to most of us as we grow older, our physical and mental resources lessen and we look back with astonishment at how much we were once able to do. Elizabeth MacKinley refers to this in her book on Spiritual Dimension which I am continuing to read at the moment. Her research suggests that this is a real problem for some older people but that for others it can mean a ‘turning back into themselves’, allowing them to let go of things they couldn’t change and accepting the transfer we mentioned last time from ‘doing’ to being’ – or, a better word she thinks, ‘becoming’. This is a powerful idea and makes an advantage of what otherwise could be one of things we regret about ageing.

I belong to two very different groups of older people, one of then is cerebral and the other physical. The thinkers are a seminar of the University of the Third Age. We meet every other week, Europe being the focus of our discussion and study. Most of us have had professional experience in our working life but often have very different perspectives. Yet there are moments when we share regret at our present limitations.’ I no longer have the energy to read a long book’ someone said. And yet there are few signs amongst us of mental lethargy and, although it is never said, there is a sort of sharing of life between us that is sometimes quite moving.

The other group meets several times a week (twice for me) and consists of people who have had some sort of cardiac disorder and feel the benefit of guided exercise. We enjoy meeting each other and for some of the group there are very strong friendships that go back over the years. The oldest – and very energetic - member is eighty five, and several of us are in our seventies. Sometimes we share our health stories; it’s reassuring to know that others have been where you have been. We admit to dragging ourselves to the hourly sessions often, but agree that we are always grateful for a discipline that helps to keep us fit. And hopeful.

Could either group be called ‘spiritual’? I guess most of the people involved would deny it. But there is something rejuvenating about both of them. In each case another sort of energy compensates for the dynamism that otherwise we have lost or are losing. Solidarity in experience and need. A new ‘becoming’, as MacKinlay suggests?

Bryan

'Being' and 'Doing'

I have been reading a book called ‘The Spiritual Dimension of Ageing’ by Elizabeth MacKinlay, an Australian nurse and Anglican priest with a concern for older people’s wellbeing. Ten years ago she conducted a survey amongst 75 people over the age of 65 living independently, in an attempt to find out more about this hidden dimension of our lives. Some were religious, some not. MacKinlay started out with the assumption that as you get older you lose a lot of your active, working life but – as we have said in these articles – you are still you, and your interior life may become more important than ever before. ‘Being’ becomes more important than ‘doing’.

It’s a technical book and so far I have skipped as many pages as I have read. ‘Spirituality’, MacKinlay implies, is a loaded word and capable of many interpretations. It is also a fashionable word and reflects our cultural retreat from community to individualism as people think more about themselves than the common good. But the need for meaning and depth to our life remains, and is perhaps more acute as we get older and we lose some of our previous roles as worker, activist, mother or father.

Coincidently, as I was dipping into the book, we had a response to these articles from Carlos who has just had his sixtieth birthday, a traumatic experience it seems. His Buddhist sympathies lead him to believe that "Death" is not the end, but rather a return to the youth of a "new Spring". ‘The most important thing is to try to do good’, he says, ‘and to have a clear conscience. Religion does not mean spiritualism’. In the difficult stage of old age, all our physical and mental problems are caused by our ageing and used "chassis". Death does not exist and old age is just a simple experience for our evolution, he concludes.

Grateful for these comments I agree with his statement that religion and spiritualism are not necessarily the same, but don’t share his faith in reincarnation; although the idea of a new Spring is very inviting. This antithesis between youth and age is perhaps one of the ogres that persecute the elderly – ‘if only I was young again’, suggesting that youth is good and age is bad. The two are different, although of course there is a continuing link in our life-line between them both. We are not as we were. That becomes increasingly obvious. But we are still who we are. More from MacKinlay’s book next time.

Bryan