Youth and Age
Reunited
“Remain
in touch with your youth, and stay connected with every moment of
your life.”
Thomas
Moore (Ageless Soul)
I listened to Thomas
Moore's birthday video posted on Facebook yesterday. Perhaps you did,
too. He celebrated his 77th birthday, by talking about the
business of aging with honesty and grace. He incorporates these ideas
in a new book, Ageless Soul, published this year. I found most
interesting his description of the soul existing partly in time and
partly in eternity. The part of one's soul that exists in time
incorporates both youth and old age at once. Moore suggested that we
can grow older without fear and dread by staying honest about our
actual years, while holding on to the stories and memories of our
younger years, and realizing that, at any age, we contain both. We carry
that young person within, even as our bodies move toward old age. I
remember a Professor of mine in graduate school, Fain Guthrie, who
was in his late sixties, telling me something similar, “Aging is
strange. Inside, I am still the same person I was at twenty-one, but
I live in this old-man's body.” At the time, I was thirty-three and
had no inkling what he was talking about. Now I understand perfectly.
Thomas Moore emphasized
two things: being honest and not embarrassed about one's true years,
and telling the stories and sharing the memories of one's earlier
life. If one wants to do all the things we do to appear
youthful—cosmetics, clothes, hair dyes—by all means, do them, but
couple that with claiming our true number of years. That way, we own
both our youth and our growth in wisdom and experience. The energies
of both youth and old age are eternal; they don't go away, so we are
legitimately both.
Moore said that we
naturally grow toward our eternal souls as we age. We become more
interested in the deeper layers of our ourselves, the spiritual layers,
as the years pass. Our focus shifts away from the superficial aspects
of who we are, into the depths of our interior. I can testify that at
twenty I was not much interested in my soul. And now, I am not so
interested in what I put on my body to make me feel attractive. Our
attention moves from outer concerns to inner concerns. It's quite a
comfortable thing, and a good way to look at the process of aging in
a positive light. Old age brings the gift of perspective gained from
a lifetime of education and experience. That's a worthy gift.
Today, wherever you are
on life's journey, know that your soul is eternal. Soul is with us
through our dark experiences, and our moments of joy and
anticipation. We are that eternal youth and that wise elder at the
same time. We can call upon both for guidance whenever we want.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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