Book of the week-4

All of us are between years behind and ahead. The years behind are memories and years ahead carry a sense of suspense.

Joan Chittister, an author of 40 books, a benedictine spiritualist in her recent book, The gift of years  takes us through her spiritual wisdom in facing up the changes taking place in our lives in multiple dimensions on account of advancing years in our lives.

"The world glorifies youth and degrades old age. The Gift of years flies in the face of this conventional wisdom. It is a wonderful celebration of the blessings of growing older, clear-eyed, ad unsentimental about the reality of the ageing process but showing us that our later years area a gift and not burden. It is time for us, Joan Chittister, to let go of both our fantasise of eternal youth and our fears about getting older." This is from its cover page.

It is a book that captures all the experiences of older age in  a vivid and descriptive way with anecdotes and personal insights. It is an easy to read book and inspirational and instructional. The short chapters The forty three chapters are well laid out making connections and cohesive reading.

She is familiar with the windstorms most of us face in our lives. I remembered to reread this book recently as I was facing the challenge of relationships. One statement, the author makes, 'At its core, life is not about things, it is about relationships'. 

As for me she redefines the cross over moments in life. I have been used to viewing experiences through the optic of transitions, but from the insights from this book, I now sense that it is a tentative perspective. What is more helpful is to regard life going through crossover experiences. We change and so our circumstances. We are regularly involved from movement from one journey station to another, which in itself is a change over process.

In the dimension of relationships, three experiences take place. We change or may not, others we are involved with change or may not, circumstances change or may not. So any human relationship is managing the confluences of these combinations, which is why most of us do not interpret our relationships well enough to make them as growing experiences. The tensions or strains in relationships weigh heavily on us and freeze us into a cold orientation towards those with whom we felt comfortable at one stage.

There is life in every relationships. There is a death of relationships when the two are separated by conflict or physical death. What Joan presents is to live in between. In life face relationships accepting the vulnerability it carries. In death live with memories which have life giving influence. 

I find each chapter captivating and refreshing. I felt honoured by the prospects of noble thoughts and experiences one can have in the older age, which is why Joan in the title refers to 'growing older gracefully'!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)