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The great psychologist Erik Erikson described it clinically.
Retired Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating described it
succinctly.
Teilhrad described it with sorrow and bitterness. But also wrote a prayer about it.
Habakkuk described it poetically.
Jesus described it to Peter emphatically.
It is one of the most common and difficult emotions we must
face as we age.
It is despair.
Despair is not an inevitable part of aging—but the risk is
always there. Despair is not limited or
unique to old age; it contributes to the mid-life crisis and many other crises
we confront throughout our lives as religious.
It is a particularly significant symptom in depression. Neither Ignatius nor Nadal were strangers to
it. We are not immune.
Erikson
Erikson understood that human development was not stagnant
after the age of 12 or so but continued throughout life. He defined eight stages of development. He was working on a ninth to describe extreme
old age when he died at 92.
Each stage is tethered to the individual’s age. Each stage requires a degree of working
through. Each stage demands confronting
and resolving crises. And each stage has
the potential to result in a positive outcome or a negative outcome. Successful traversal of each stage will
result in the individual acquiring certain basic strengths that help in
traversing subsequent stages.
For example, the first stage, from birth to about 18 months
represents the struggle between developing a basic sense of trust and
mistrust. If things go reasonably well
the infant will develop the ego strengths of drive and hope in addition to the
sense of basic trust.
It is tempting to march through each of the stages but I
will go directly to the seventh and eighth with most of the focus on the
latter. The seventh stage covers the
years from 35 to 55 or 65. It is the
stage of generativity vs. stagnation or self-absorption. The resulting strength from successful
completion is caring.
For the vast majority of people the opportunity for
generativity is through marriage, children, grandchildren and so on. We (Jesuits) do not have that option but we
are able to traverse the same stages with a positive outcome through teaching,
community life, interaction in the workplace and pastoral work. We do not leave genetic progeny behind but .
. . we leave our work, our students, and those we served through our various
ministries.
Erikson’s eighth stage, from ages 55 or so to the end of
life, is that of integrity vs. despair.
This eighth stage is a time of reconsidering our lives and looking them
over. It is a time of remembering. It is
a time for telling the stories more than once in an attempt to truly realize
them. The ego strength resulting from a good outcome is that of wisdom, a
virtue our tradition has treasured for millennia.
Erikson defined integrity as the ability to look back on one’s
life with happiness, with acceptance of the successes AND with
acceptance of the failures, the ability to look back with contentment and a
sense of fulfillment, feeling that life has meaning to which we have
contributed. One commentator described
Erikson’s concept of integrity as realizing that while we weren’t responsible
for the hand we were dealt, we come to understand that we played it as well as
we could.
The antithesis of integrity is despair, a sense that time is
too short, that we have failed, a sense that life was, and is, purposeless;
death is to be feared. It is as if we
are singing the Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” with all the
accompanying emotions: misanthropy,
complaining, and bitterness.
Thomas Keating, OCSO
Keating is the former abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey in
Spencer, MA who is most well known for
his work in Centering Prayer. Keating summarizes
Erikson’s integrity vs. despair in as few words as possible. “Despair is suffering that fails to
teach.”
I’ve been mulling this statement over for about 27 years
since I first stumbled across it in one of his books. When I first read these words, I closed the
book, put on a coat and went for a long walk in the dark, the better to
consider what it meant. I’m still on
that walk. Each of us must decide what
that means for himself. And only
himself.
One of our great challenges as religious men is to refrain
from the temptation to tell others, be it a congregation at a funeral, a friend
in the community, or anyone else what he should be learning from his
suffering. At our best we will listen to
the other with compassion but without commentary or advice. At our best we will seek meaning in our own
suffering be it physical, psychological or spiritual.
Teilhard de Chardin
Teilhrad died in 1955 at age 74, rather advanced old age at
that time when life expectancy was hovering around 60. In The
Divine Milieu he wrote of the internal passivities of diminishment to
describe aging. He did not mince his
bitter words. “Humanly speaking, the
internal passivities of diminishment form the darkest element and the most
despairingly useless years of our life.... and if by chance we escape there
still remains that slow, essential deterioration which we cannot escape: old
age little by little robbing us of ourselves and pushing us on towards the
end.” Compared to this Peggy Lee sounds
like Mary Poppins singing about that spoonful of sugar.
Despite the bitterness and sorrow underlying these words, he
also wrote a prayer included in the small book Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits. Here he gets it right. I’ve included that prayer for your meditation.
Habakkuk
Every Friday of week II morning prayer the canticle is from
the third chapter of Habakkuk. The
canticle describes extreme loss, devastation, catastrophe and such. The final verses describe the situation of
all who live to old age. The life of all
those who gradually watch everything they have and hold diminish and
disappear. It details the stripping away
of everything until only the strength given us by God remains. We don’t lose fig trees or flocks these days;
BUT . . .
We are compelled to retire.
We must stop driving. Vision
fades. Hearing diminishes. With age the boundaries of our lives
constrict. Living within them may be
difficult. Living within them as
Jesuits, as contemplatives in actions with a heavy emphasis on action, may be a
particular risk for despair.
Jesus.
Jesus did not specifically mention despair when he addressed
Peter in the 21st chapter of John’s Gospel. But he limned old age for many in this time
of increased longevity.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded
yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out
your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to
go." And so it is for many of
us. And so it will be for many of
us. And so it will be for all of us if
we live long enough.
Somehow bounding up and down the steps in the novitiate
becomes walking cautiously with a cane.
And it happens in the blink of an eye.
Then comes the walker, the
wheelchair, or the scooter. Even for the
indestructible Jimmy Martin, there came a time of being bed and chair bound, a
time when he lived the Suscipe that he had prayed for over 85
years as a Jesuit.
I want to close with a story about Jimmy, a man whom I did
not know extremely well, having met him only in 2002 when he turned 100, but
with whom I shared a hometown and a moment that I will never forget, a moment that I hope will inform my own aging
and death.
It was Advent 2002, the last year in the old house. Jimmy was recovering from a bout of
pneumonia. I’d returned from a party and
stopped in his room around 9:00 PM. He
was lying quietly in bed with his eyes partially closed but obviously
awake. I asked, “Jimmy, what are you
doing?” He opened his eyes and replied,
“Praying.” I asked “what are you praying about?” He replied, “I’m praying because I don’t
think I’ve given enough to God.” I froze
as tears sprang to my eyes. After being
a Jesuit longer than most people can realistically expect to live, he is
wondering if he has given enough to God.
Jimmy understood Erikson’s integrity vs. despair, his
suffering taught him everything Keating could have imagined. Jimmy probably would not have agreed with
Teilhard’s pessimistic assessment of aging. Jimmy said with Habakkuk, “God, my
Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables me
to go upon the heights.”
Advent is ending.
Soon enough we will celebrate the great feast of the Nativity of our
Lord. We know that the wood of the
manger in Bethlehem led to the wood of the cross in Jerusalem. Our journey is analogous. It will not be free of suffering in any of
its dimensions. How will we play the hand we are dealt in old age?
Prayer for the Grace to Age Well
When the
signs of age begin to mark my body
(and still
more when they touch my mind);
when the
ill that is to diminish me or carry me off
strikes
from without or is born within me;
when the
painful moment comes
in which I suddenly
awaken
to the fact
that I am ill or growing old;
and above
all at that last moment
when I feel
I am losing hold of myself
and am
absolutely passive within the hands
of the
great unknown forces that have formed me;
in all
those dark moments, O God,
grant that
I may understand that it is you
(provided
only my faith is strong enough)
who are
painfully parting the fibers of my being
in order to
penetrate to the very marrow
of my
substance and bear me away within yourself.
Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, S.J.
Hearts on Fire p. 97
Habakkuk 3:2-4, 13a, 15-19
O LORD, I
have heard your renown,
and feared,
O LORD, your work.
In the
course of the years revive it,
in the
course of the years make it known;
in your
wrath remember compassion!
God comes
from Teman ,
the Holy
One from Mount Paran.
Covered are
the heavens with his glory,
and with
his praise the earth is filled.
His
splendor spreads like the light;
rays shine
forth from beside him,
where his
power is concealed.
I hear, and
my body trembles;
at the
sound, my lips quiver.
Decay
invades my bones,
my legs
tremble beneath me.
For though
the fig tree blossom not
nor fruit
be on the vines,
though the
yield of the olive fail
and the
terraces produce no nourishment,
though the
flocks disappear from the fold
and there
be no herd in the stalls,
Yet will I
rejoice in the LORD
and exult
in my saving God.
GOD, my
Lord, is my strength;
he makes my
feet swift as those of hinds
and enables
me to go upon the heights.
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Ice and Christmas
I've been playing with some of the photos from the ice storm using Aperture 3. The results are below. The first two are holly with ice. After playing with the controls for a while I figured out how to wash all the color except the reds from the photo. The result looks like pewter leaves with red berries.
The next is a part of a larger photo in which the colors, contrast, and black were manipulated a lot. This is when I wish I had a much greater than 10 mp camera. The ice distorted the berries not the computer.
The mural above the altar in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit is titled "The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit." When we entered 15 years ago it was quite dirty from 80 plus years of incense and candle wax. A small portion of it, a preview of coming attractions, was cleaned just before ordination. Two years ago the entire chapel was restored. This is the magnificent result. These were very long exposures at f22.
The altar was only partially decorated when I took these two days ago. More flowers coming today. I like the simple look here very much. The carpet is badly faded due to sunlight over the years. No one spilled any water.
The St. Ignatius Altar to the right of the main altar. I will confess that in both this photo and the one above there were some areas lacking lights. One set of the colored lights was not lit at all. I will not say which tree. However, I pasted enough lights to make the trees really glow.
+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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