Most of us who are older find ourselves dealing with times of significant decisions, and whether we are people of faith or not, moments which invite us into deeper reflection.
If we begin with retirement, we look ahead to see how we could spend the days in this different phase of life. Obviously, some people feel that the time ahead is a gift of relaxation. They lie around at home, visit friends and family and go on holidays. In terms of faith, they may feel that this is the time in life when their God expects them to receive a whole new lifestyle of enjoyment.
Others see retirement as a time for choosing what would give a sense of meaning and purpose to their lives, which they may not have had when doing paid work. Perhaps choosing a mix between relaxing and doing meaningful activities could be what we are called to and what will give us fuller and satisfying lives. In my experience, that is true.
Provided our health is good enough, we can often add to the lives of others as well as our own. There is a depth in participating in activities that question injustices and lack of compassion and offer solutions. We find ourselves using our skills and inspirations and joining with others in hoping for a better world. Often people are surprised to find older people engaging in the renewing of true community and they celebrate the fact that we are doing anything worthwhile.
Also, many of us find that ageing brings moments of reflection about our past – what is it that we wish we had never done, and what do we feel glad to have done? We know that, if we are to confess to things in our past and hope to receive grace in response, it must happen now, because tomorrow may never come. Whether we are religious or not, believing that we can be forgiven is often hard. If we can’t ask the person directly whom we have wronged, sometimes it helps if we make our confessions to someone we trust who can assure us that we may lay down our regrets. We are human like everyone else and no-one lives life without mistakes and wrongdoing.
Then there is the issue of death. It now looks us in the face and we know that sooner or later it will come to us. Most of us hope that it will be sudden, rather than after much suffering or loss of normal life. I think many people do wonder whether there is anything waiting for us on the other side of death and what that might be like.
There are two books that have been profoundly helpful to me and many others I have known. The first was written by an American surgeon. It is called Life After Life and describes his experience of relating to many of his patients after they had experienced what was like a moment of death, from which they recovered. Whatever faith they related to, or if they had none, they all described the same thing – travelling through a sort of tunnel and coming out the other end of it into what they could only describe as absolute love.
Then there is the amazing book by Helen Greaves called Testimony of Light. She is a leading Church of England member. Shortly after the death of her best friend, Frances Banks, an Anglican nun, Helen began to hear her speaking about life after death. All their friends agreed that when Helen wrote this down, it sounded just like the way Frances normally spoke. The book described a fine veil between life and death and how everyone who passed through it lost anything in their lives that had no eternal value and carried that which did have eternal value with them.
As we leave Easter behind us, we may be prepared to believe that some people, like Jesus Christ, live so fully that they have to be stopped by those whose power they threaten. However, this good and costly life can never really be destroyed and it rises among us and calls us on in hope.
