In the late 1970s, the parish council of which I was a member undertook a survey of parishioners’ interests and needs. Our objectives were to identify unmet needs and to improve existing parish organizations and services. One woman responded with a single sentence: “I am eighty-six years old, and my opinions don’t matter.”
That one sentence contained a multitude of issues:
the marginalization of older adults
the way they have internalized the attitudes that cause it
their lack of a voice, and, above all,
the existence of these conditions in a parish context
I began asking questions:
Where are the guideposts for the spiritual life of the aging?
What does Christian spirituality offer to counter the secular literature on decline, diminishment, and death?
Is anybody telling an eighty-six-year-old woman that her opinions do matter?
I only gradually began to find some answers as I myself aged.
When I retired after a rewarding career as a lawyer and a judge, I discovered that I had become invisible. As a litigation partner in a law firm at a time when women were still a small minority in the field of law, I was recognizable. As a judge, I received respectful deference, sometimes excessively so, from the lawyers who practiced before me. Suddenly, for the first time in my adult life, it was Monday morning and I had no appointments—nobody awaiting my arrival; nobody calling my still-unlisted telephone number. As an only child who never married, I could not take convenient refuge in “spending more time with the family.” I had to address the question, Who am I now?
In 1962, I was one of sixteen women in a Harvard Law School graduating class of 468. Harvard had been the last major law school to admit women, in 1950, and in the early sixties there were still professors who explained at length why it had been a bad idea. The reason most often given was that we were taking up places in the class that would otherwise have gone to men who would “use” their legal education. (The sixteen women in my graduating class include three judges and four law professors.) Some of the older faculty complained that now they were required to clean up their language. It took a strong sense of self to compete in that environment. The answer to “Who am I?” was clear. I saw myself as a lawyer and as a person who knew how to succeed in a competitive, even hostile, environment. After graduation, the challenges were greater: laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex did not exist prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that law was not widely enforced for another decade after that. I persevered because I truly believed that this was my vocation.
During much of my career, I often felt that I had one foot in each of two worlds. I worked in an aggressively secular environment, among people who did not share my values. At the same time, I was active in parish and ecumenical activities among religious people who had no concept of my professional life or the special pressures it involved. By the time I was in my early forties, I was searching for a way to integrate these two ways of living. My spiritual director at the time recommended that I make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I did so in the form known as The Retreat in Daily Life (also known as The Nineteenth Annotation). Over an eight-month period, I met weekly with my director and under her guidance followed a prayer schedule in accordance with Ignatius’s schematic, including Scripture reading and journaling. In the course of “making” the Exercises, I learned something about decision making and how to pray with Scripture, both of which I will discuss in detail later in this book. I also acquired a better understanding of my vocation. When my director asked if I could summarize in a sentence what the Exercises meant for me, I said, quoting an older translation of St. Paul: “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).
All things happen in God’s time. A few months after I completed the Exercises, the law firm of which I was a partner dissolved because of a conflict between the two principal partners. I was “downsized” before the word was in my vocabulary. Who was I? No longer a partner in a law firm, I still defined myself as a lawyer and a person who knew how to succeed in a competitive environment. Applying what I had learned about prayerful decision making, I decided to open my own office. I saw a chance, as a solo practitioner, to better integrate the two worlds in which I was living—for example, by taking on more pro bono work than had been possible in my former situation. Among other things, I represented a not-for-profit organization, which I billed at a reduced rate or not at all—options that would not have been approved at my previous firm. I now had the freedom to do something new.
With the freedom came new challenges. I had to spend a great deal of time on client development and office management rather than on actual billable work. Not all clients paid promptly, but the rent, my secretary’s salary, and all the other necessary office expenses nevertheless had to be met. Today there are a number of bar association programs and other resources for lawyers in these circumstances, but in the 1980s there was no playbook. I was on my own. I had to make choices about what to spend money on and how to allocate my time. I gained a new appreciation for these resources and the fact that all were gifts of God, to be used in love and service.
After five years of what I called my “desert period,” I became a U.S. Magistrate Judge. Life could not have been more different. At the very beginning, an older judge gave me some advice that I think applies in life as much as in court. He said, “You can’t change all the injustice that you see. All you can do is try to do justice in the individual case before you.” That wisdom now seems to me to extend to the spiritual life: All we can do is live in the present moment and try to find the grace in it.
After retirement, I found myself asking again, “Who am I now?” The Holy Spirit began moving me toward answers.
A neighbor of mine was one of the original members of the Ignatian Lay Volunteer Corps (as it was then called), an organization of retired adults who do volunteer work among the poor in the context of Ignatian spirituality.1 I sent for an application but hesitated over the requirement of two days a week for ten months of the year. My ninety-year-old mother was in assisted living in Connecticut, and managing her affairs required a lot of my time. I set the application aside for future reference. A year and a half later, and barely weeks after my mother died, I received a call from the regional coordinator for the New York area, who said she was going through old files and wanted to know whether I was still interested. I said I was and asked for a new set of application materials. When they arrived, I was busy with other things, and I set them aside. She called again! Putting myself in her place, I knew I would never have had the courage to do that. I realized that when I hadn’t responded to the whisper, the Holy Spirit raised her voice.
I became an Ignatian Volunteer in September 2000. I was placed on Manhattan’s Lower East Side at Cabrini Immigrant Services, a new organization that needed volunteer English teachers.2 On paper, I had no official qualifications for this task, but it seemed right. The director was a practical woman who put more emphasis on character and commitment than on formal qualifications. With a lot of research and help from experienced teachers, I began teaching an intermediate-level English class for mostly Chinese immigrants.
That first class of students taught me how to teach. I learned their needs and found ways to address them. They also taught me a lot about lifelong learning. The ability to learn a second language falls off sharply after childhood, and for mature adults it’s hard work. Some of my students over the years have been older than I am, shining examples of what older people can accomplish.
But my story does not end there. After sixteen grace-filled years teaching English and a long period of discernment, I have, at age eighty, embarked on a new ministry as a spiritual director. To qualify, I spent three summers at Creighton University’s Graduate School of Theology, where I was by far the oldest student in an internationally and ecumenically diverse class. I expected from the beginning that once I was fully certified, I would be working with people in my own age group, particularly with other Ignatian Volunteers. However, for my practicum (the Latin name for the internship between the second and third summers), I found myself guiding four people in their early twenties. I am reminded of a Jewish proverb to the effect that we make our plans, and God laughs.3 I also worried that in light of the supposed short attention spans of millennials, one or more of them would drop out, jeopardizing my ability to satisfy the practicum requirement. To my great joy (and immense relief), they all stayed the course for the full nine-month commitment, and I learned a great deal about how the Holy Spirit moves both director and directee.
Reflecting on these experiences in the context of Ignatian spirituality, I have come to a whole new way of looking at the Christian vocation of older adults.
For those of us who grew up before the Second Vatican Council, vocation had a very narrow meaning: A person who “had a vocation” was going to be a priest or a nun and was called upon to make a lifetime commitment. Today we have a much broader understanding of what it means to live the gospel, to share the Good News. The Holy Spirit has breathed life into some creative new forms of vocation. Some of the better-known organizations are the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which invites recent college graduates to live in community for a year while doing full-time volunteer service4; Mercy Associates, a similar program of the Sisters of Mercy5; Jean Vanier’s L’Arche Communities, whose volunteers live in community for a year or two with people who are developmentally disabled6; and, of course, my own group, Ignatian Volunteer Corps, whose members commit from year to year for two days a week, September to June. These and many others invite laypeople to give some of their time and talent at specific times in their life’s journey to pray together and to serve those in need.
My experience as an Ignatian Volunteer has led me to understand that those of us who have retired from full-time paid work have entered a new stage of life—a new kind of vocation, with a unique charism. Not everyone has the ability or the opportunity to do volunteer work, but we can all experience the graces particular to this stage of life. Ignatian spirituality, particularly as reflected in some of the forms of prayer discussed in this book, can open us to those graces.
Older adults are in several ways a spiritually underserved population. Many parishes have a variety of programs for children, teens, and families but make no effort to address the aging apart from the general sacramental life of the congregation. A woman I interviewed in the course of writing this book complained that a campaign to make her parish more responsive to the needs of older members resulted in the addition of bus trips for seniors but nothing with a spiritual dimension. The chapters that follow will discuss the spiritual dimensions of some of the transitions that occur as we age: retirement, empty nesting, caregiving, and various kinds of losses.
When the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, Congress fixed sixty-five as the normal retirement age because the average life expectancy was short. A sixty-five-year-old was old. That is certainly no longer true. Older Americans are an increasing percentage of the population, and we are living longer than ever. In 2014, the latest year for which statistics are available, there were approximately 46.2 million people over age 65 (14.5 percent of the population), 6.2 million over 85, and more than 72,000 people age 100 or older.7 Yet our youth-conscious society has not caught up with this new reality. Television commercials aimed at our age group give the impression that older adults spend most of their time talking to their doctors, with occasional breaks to plant flowers, walk the dog, and explain at great length how they stopped smoking. That’s not who we are!
This book is for the aging. I won’t attempt to define “aging” in years. We are all aging from the day we are born. Many people lead active, productive lives in their eighties and nineties; some people feel “old” in their fifties. Nor is it very helpful to speak of “senior citizens,” a ubiquitous phrase with a condescending undertone. The people I have met who have experienced an identity crisis similar to mine cover a wide range of ages. They include, among others, the newly retired (voluntarily or not); those contemplating retirement; empty-nest parents; those who have experienced a sudden sense of mortality due to a health crisis or the loss of a loved one; and anyone who feels that more of life is behind than ahead. If you relate to one of those descriptions, please read on.
This book is for Christians, especially—but not only—Catholics, who want to grow in a God-centered life by exploring the graces specific to the later stages of life. It is grounded in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the rich tradition derived from them. This approach to the spiritual life will be familiar to some readers and new to others. A brief introduction to Ignatian spirituality will help define the context for both groups of readers.
Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) was trained for court life in imperial Spain. Later he served as a soldier and appears to have fully enjoyed the pleasures available to an ambitious young man of his social class. Religion had only superficial importance for him until, at the age of thirty, he was seriously injured in battle. Facing a long, painful recuperation with nothing to read except the lives of the saints and a book on the life of Christ, he began to reflect on his feelings: What caused him to feel peaceful; what left him dry and agitated? These meditations led him deeper into the spiritual life and eventually to a new definition of who he was and who he was called to be: spiritual teacher and, eventually, founder of the Society of Jesus.
Ignatius is best known for the Spiritual Exercises. They were originally designed to be experienced in a retreat setting over a thirty-day period of intense prayer, meditation, and silence. This is still a common practice, especially for Jesuits. For people who could not remove themselves from their everyday responsibilities for such a continuous period, Ignatius suggested adaptations. Of these, the best known is The Retreat in Daily Life (also called The Nineteenth Annotation), which involves a commitment to regular prayer over an extended period. Ignatius’s annotations to the Exercises also recommended a simplified version intended for people unable because of age or disability to make the full retreat.8 Today, the key principles of the Exercises have been adapted by many spiritual directors in different contexts, such as eight-day directed retreats; parish programs offering abbreviated versions of The Retreat in Daily Life; and online retreats in various languages and formats, including the full Exercises and guidelines for groups. For those who may be interested in making the full Exercises or in pursuing a retreat or a parish program, I have provided links to some resources in Ignatian Resources at the end of the book.
The Exercises are intended as an experience to be lived, not a book to be read. Ignatius wrote the text specifically for spiritual directors, not for the people they direct. God Isn’t Finished with Me Yet is neither a comprehensive study of Ignatian spirituality nor a path through the Exercises. This book explores the wisdom in the Exercises that has much broader application.
First and foremost, the Exercises are about encountering, loving, and following Jesus.9 We are encouraged to see everything in our lives as a means to this end. At the outset, we are asked to make a conscious choice that moves us away from self-absorption and toward a God-centered life. Ignatius prescribed meditations on creation, on sin, on God’s boundless love for us as sinners, and above all, on the life, ministry, sufferings, and death of Jesus. In both the full Exercises and its various adaptations, the retreatant prays with Scripture, examines his or her own responses, records them in a journal, and learns to discern the difference between the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the impulses that come from other sources. The common thread throughout is finding God in all things.
This was not an entirely new idea in Ignatius’s time. His contribution was to expand the idea of “all things” beyond traditional ideas such as the beauty of nature and the happenstances of life. Ignatius’s great insight was that God is present in our emotions, our imagination, our memories—indeed, in the deepest parts of our being. Much of Ignatian spirituality is directed to recognizing the subtle ways in which God is revealed to us deep within ourselves.
The chapters that follow will discuss how Ignatius’s advice on prayer, decision making, and discernment can provide guidance for some of the challenges faced by older adults. But this book is not a recruiting tool for any particular program or form of prayer. It is an invitation to companionship on the spiritual journey. There is still a great deal of the road ahead, at any age. God isn’t finished with us yet!
Those of us who have been blessed with long lives have a great store of memories. We also may worry about the future, no matter how well we have planned for it. To be open to God’s grace in the present, we need to deepen our awareness of the present.
Find a comfortable place to sit, in an area where there is some activity but not excessive noise: a park bench, an outdoor café during an off-peak time, a mall, or even your own front porch, if you are lucky enough to have one. Shut off your phone. Relax, breathe deeply, and acknowledge God’s presence.
Begin to notice your surroundings. What is the composition of the seat you’re sitting on and the structures around you: wood, metal, concrete, glass, marble, plastic? Notice the texture, the colors, the shapes and sizes. What is the air around you like: warm, cool, windy, humid? What can you hear: traffic, voices, music? Are there odors, scents?
Next, notice the people. Without staring, observe if they are alone or in groups, adults or children. Are they walking purposefully or strolling? What does their body language tell you about where they may be going or how they may be feeling? Are they relaxed, tense?
Focus on your own feelings. Are you comfortable? Relaxed? Why or why not?
When you are ready, thank God for the experience.