How our spirituality is affected by aging
We know what it means to grow older. We’ve been doing it all our lives. Physically we get stiff and lose our hair. Mentally we may become forgetful, but that is balanced by a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. Even our spirituality is affected by aging and that is the focus of these reflections.
As children, we may have attended Sunday School or classes at Hebrew School or another assembly of a faith tradition—Or none at all.
Our parents may have taught us to pray at bedtime or to say grace at suppertime. But these things are about religion and what we have learned because of someone else’s choices to teach us.
How spirituality is affected by aging
Spirituality, however, is something we are all born with. Little children ‘live the questions’ (What holds the stars in the sky? How deep is the ocean? How do birds know where to fly in the winter?) They see miracles, angels, and evidence of the Divine easily. It is a period of wonder and awe that slips away once we learn to read and develop our frontal cortex.
- Adolescents turn to acts of service and missions (think scouting) and learn that not all good works are tied to religion.
- As a young adult, the study of world religions is a common choice. And some people turn away from the faith in their inheritance in their young adult years.
- Mature adults may be staunch members of religious congregations, but more frequently they find spiritual nourishment through creativity or nature.
- In the last segment of life, we may find our spirituality is shaped by all of these experiences as well as our failures, losses, and fears – things that we eschew in our youth and understand with wisdom the older we get. Let’s consider the impact of physical changes on our spirituality
Wisdom in wrinkles
When times are tough, most people have a physical place or practice they turn to for comfort. I often joke about chocolate and although sugar is not directly related to spirituality, humor may be. I confess I have more habits or practices that are not the healthiest.
My goal is to leave behind those things that don’t feed my soul and choose those that bring health to my body.
For example, I find one glass of wine adds joy, but two taketh away health. A walk in nature fills my soul with creative reflection, but strolling through Walmart feeds my lust for things for which I have no need.
I don’t know about you, but I am finding a lot of physical changes as I grow older. Even wrinkles have a place in spiritual growth.
Wrinkles, gray hair, and cataracts teach me profound lessons about impermanence and provide an opportunity to practice compassion for myself. If I take the time to reflect on these things I experience inner growth.
And this growth becomes a gift to the world. Might I go so far as to suggest that an answer to world peace is hidden in a practice of listening to the wisdom in wrinkles?
The breadth and depth of faith
Other ways spirituality may be affected by aging may be in becoming more stagnant as our physical abilities decline. Changes in mobility, vision, and hearing, or even a pandemic that cancels traditional practices all work together to affect how we access things like Bible studies, assembly with others, or beauty in the temple of nature.
Conversely, we find new practices like breathing meditation, slow walking meditation or connecting through Zoom with others from all parts of the world.
Even though I have a theological education I never found God in books. Only ideas about God.
Finding Mystery (my chosen word for the Divine) has been an adventure in listening to silence, watching the dawn remove darkness, and asking deep questions about life.
If we think of religion as the breadth of our faith, extending across the ages and geography of humanity, we might consider spirituality to be its depth. A spiritual person may be described as running ‘deep’ as he or she searches for inner truth and awakening. Aging is going to affect both the breadth and depth of our lives in ways that call for us to rethink and adjust the “way we’ve always done it”. Let’s look at some changes we can witness as we grow older.
Changes in perception
Not all changes in perception are related to cataracts and hearing aids. Our view of the Divine may change with age, as we come to understand ourselves and the world in a more nuanced way. Forgiveness comes easier when we release black and white thinking and accept that a lot of life is lived in the ‘gray zone’ – figuratively and literally.
There are more ways that our spirituality is affected by growing older. As we age we may have more difficulty accessing new insights and emotions. I wonder if this is the root of our rigidity when churches change or even close. A twenty-year-old can envision a new mission and thrust their energies into new directions. At seventy, we are done with the adventure of change and just want things to stay the same.
To Recap
There comes a day of reckoning when we realize that we will not achieve some of the goals we have set in life. We know that along with our legacies of fame and fortune we leave a trail of failures.
The older we get, the more we experience grief and loss. We go to more funerals than weddings, we need two hands to count the pets we have buried.
Every year brings an increase in opportunities —to forgive and be forgiven, to confront our resistance to change and to surrender things we have been striving a lifetime for and savor what we have, not only materially, but in our character and in our way of being in the world. These are all ways our spirituality is affected by aging.
In summary, spiritual growth is never-ending. We don’t get a ‘bye’ because of physical limitations, perceptual changes, or grief. These are the very tools with which we can plummet the depths of our being to become fully alive, fully human, fully divine.
How has your spirituality changed as you age? Tell us in the comment section below.
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