Fierce with Age Digest, Vol. 6

Wisdom from Way-showers, Elders. Mystics and Sages

Welcome to the sixth edition of the Fierce with Age Digest featuring excerpts drawn from over 1000 entries gathered by a team of contributors over 15 years. Both free and paid subscribers will receive periodic Digest posts in 2025 along with my monthly blog and news updates.

Upgrade to paid membership in the Spiritual Aging Support and Study Group at Substack and receive weekly study guides paired to the readings in my new book Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life along with paid members-only access to the interactive online conversation available 24/7.

For the complete collection of best-of-the-year Fierce with Age editions, click HERE.

SO WHAT IF NIGHT COMES?

St. Thomas told his secretary and biographer Reginald that if his days as a writer and teacher were over, then he wanted to die fast. I don’t feel that way about it. And I don’t feel that my days as a writer are over. I don’t care what they are.

The point for me is that I must stop trying to adjust myself to the fact that night will come and the work will end. So night comes. Then what? You sit in the dark. What is wrong with that? Meanwhile, it is time to give to others whatever I have to give and not reflect on it.

I wish I had learned the knack of doing this without question or care. Perhaps I can begin. It is not a matter of adjustment or of peace. It is a matter of truth, and patience, and humility.”

–Thomas Merton Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing, edited by Robert Inchausti

_________________________________

TURN OFF THE KLEIG LIGHT

“One of the ironies of growing older is that what serves you best in old age is not your history of successes but those times when life busted your illusions. You, old friend, have learned the most important lesson life has to offer: how to fail well. Unlike the famous ones who have had the incentive and means to freeze their air-brushed persona in time—at least for awhile--you have had the opportunity to learn from your mistakes, navigating your way through the treacherous terrain of broken dreams to discover that every crisis overcome made you stronger

What use is it to celebrate yourself only for past successes when it is your failures that have served you best when it comes to aging? How much more edifying to have discovered that life can and will strip you bare, tear away your masks, and that you don’t need a klieg light for your spirit to shine.”

—Carol Orsborn, “Fifth Week of April, Year One”, Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life

THE BEAUTY OF SHADOWS

“Marlene used to be a very active person. No more. Now she lives with her daughter and son-in-law. Marlene is as alert as she ever was. However, walking is very difficult for her now. Marlene spends much of her time sitting outside in the sun.

She has discovered the beauty of shadows. There is a stately white birch tree nearby. Marlene watches how, with the passing hours, the sun’s lengthening shadow sculpts that tree. Marlene keeps her pleasure to herself. She knows no one who would appreciate her discovery. Certainly not the always-on-the-go person that Marlene used to be.

Marlene smiles. Different delights for different times of life, she muses to herself.”

–David E. Sanford, marriage counselor and author

__________________________________

DANCING WITH LIGHT

After chanting Buddha’s name for years, an old woman suddenly feels “all the falsehoods of her life drop away and she is completely and utterly awake. Thrilled, she rushes to see the great Zen Master Hakuin, telling him that her whole body is filled with Buddha and that all of the mountains and rivers, forests and fields are shining with great enlightenment.

He looks at her: ‘Oh really?” he says. ‘And is this great light also shining up your butt?’
Even though the old woman is tiny, she pushes him over, shouting, ‘Well, I can see you still have work to do yourself, old man!’

They laugh themselves silly and are so happy that they dance and dance and dance—awakeness meeting awakeness.”

–Geri Larkin, “The Secret of Abiding Joy” in Spirituality/Health.com, Nov/Dec. 2015

___________________________________________

HARROWING

“…I have plowed my life this way

Turned over a whole history

Looking for the roots of what went wrong

Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. The job is done.

Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be

Seedbed for the growing that’s to come,

I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons—

The farmer plows to plant a greening season.”

–Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old

_________________________

For the Spiritual Aging Calendar of Free and Support Group Events, click HERE

How to Join or Start a Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group, click HERE