This Is Grace

 

Prism of Light

“The second half of life is the ultimate initiation. In it we encounter those new, unexpected, unfamiliar, and unknowable moments that remind us that we are a sacred mystery made manifest.”

Angeles Arrien (The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom, 2005)

          Angeles Arrien, who died in 2014, was a cultural anthropologist, author and teacher who blended anthropology, psychology, and spirituality in her work. In this book about aging consciously, Arrien tells the story of an 86-year-old woman named Martha McCallum:

“One morning I was sitting at my kitchen table staring into space. It was one of those windy days when the sun keeps coming out and going in. All of a sudden, a sunbeam crossed my kitchen table and lit up my crystal saltshaker. There were all kinds of colors and sparkles. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen. But you know, that very same saltshaker had been on that kitchen table for over fifty years. Surely there must have been other mornings when the sun crossed the table like that, but I was too busy getting things done. I wondered what else I had missed. I realized that this was it, this was grace.”

          Our culture doesn’t think much of old age. We tend to see it as a period of decline when people lose both their physicality and their mental acuity. To be sure, there are physical and mental challenges in these later years, but there are also many opportunities for growth. As our children establish their own homes and lives, we have a chance to step into a new identity of our own. We discard the accoutrements of living in a busy household, and the roles we have played up to this point. If we are living consciously, this can be the most creative and personally fulfilling stage of our lives simply because it is the freest.

          What is required for us to move forward with joy and excitement is that we must let go of what has been. We must stop looking back and longing for what was and is no more. If we can cut the strings on our first half of life and turn our faces toward the potential this time offers, we will find that same grace that Martha McCallum spoke of. If we aren’t so busy looking back, we just might catch a glimpse of her prism of light. When we focus our energy on what is now, and what comes next, this can be the most fruitful time of our lives. As Angeles Arrien wrote in The Second Half of Life: “When you have the courage to change at midlife, a miracle happens.” And who doesn’t want that?

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane