A friend of mine, an aging priest whose hands shake with Parkinson tremors, managed to write me a note with the following quotation by William Lynch, a Catholic scholar.
“The image of death as passivity and helplessness may well be the great American fear. The American has not yet been helped by our artists to handle images of passivity. He has only demeaning and corrupt images of the passive, of not being able, like Horatio Alger, to do all things. And such are his images of waiting, or doing nothing, or being dependent. The American is not equipped, therefore, with an imagination, with a set of images, which would tell him that it is all right to lie down in good time and die, dependently leaving it to God to raise him up again.“
I too suffer from lack of mental images that affirm passivity. I have spent years running myself.Running was better than walking, walking than sitting, and anything was better than lying down.
But Inspired by Lynch’s wise words, I have tried to think of images of passivity that artists have given us during my lifetime. I'm having a hard time with that. What floated to the surface of my memory first was Daisy, in The Great Gatsby, languid and petulant on a chaise longue. Passivity = decadence.
Maybe new age music? Enya?
What about modern Madonna and child paintings? The subject claimed a goodly portion of paintings from the past. In them, Mary is not changing diapers or bathing the baby. She is usually just staring in adoration. For me, those are the most powerful images of peaceful passivity.
There must be some art out there supplying this oft denied urge toward the passive. Enlighten me, please, if you find one.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Is Rest Really Reprehensible
My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; *
my body also shall rest in hope.
Psalm 16
Margaret, my well-beloved cousin (once-removed) is eighty-nine years old. She inherited both a cheerful and generous disposition and weak ankles from her father. Her ankles far sag inward under her considerable weight. Because of this, for several years now she has simply slid her feet forward a few inches at a time instead of picking them up when she walks. She feels more and more unsteady as she ages and fears a fall, of which she has had several already. Fortunately, her substantial padding and her penchant for falling in flowerbeds rather than the sidewalk has saved her from injury so far.
Margaret’s driver’s license was up for renewal on her last birthday. Unsure of herself behind the wheel, she asked the inspector at the Highway Department if he thought she ought to renew her driver’s license, which would expire when she was ninety-nine.
The man took a deep breath. He had obviously been faced with dilemma before. He tapped his clipboard against his leg, stalling. Finally he said, “Well, can you turn your head to look over your shoulder?”
Margaret tried the maneuver. She could turn her chin almost to her shoulder but no farther.
“So,” she tells me during our regular morning phone call the next day, “I decided the Lord was using that to tell me I ought to give up driving.”
I breathe a silent prayer of thanks.
The Lord plays a large part in Margaret’s array of ways for coping with aging. Margaret watched my mother decline into dementia seven years ago. Like most of us, Margaret fears the possibility of facing that same fate. She consoles herself thus: “I just pray the Lord comes again before I lose my mind.”
When the Lord intervened in her drivers license renewal, Cousin Margaret’s family and friends, whatever their spiritual standing, praised Margaret’s Lord for his foresight. They no longer have to worry about her endangering her life and that of others on the highway.
Another benefit accrued to Margaret after the sacrifice of her driver’s license. She found herself officially eligible for Medicare services to the housebound. Her doctor, concerned about her unsteadiness, prescribed a round of physical therapy for her.
Alice comes twice a week to help Margaret improve her walking – or as the professionals call it, “gait training.” Alice and Margaret have worked up to a half dozen laps across Margaret’s living room.
“I’m done in,” she tells me, following one of Alice’s visits. “And sore. It takes me the whole next day just to get over the therapy.”
I thought about that and a question concerning aging formed in my mind: When should an old person, especially one as old as Margaret, be allowed to just give up? When should we, family and so-called health care professionals alike, stop pestering them to keep on going, improving their gait or watching their diet or broadening their interests and just let them be. Let them, blessed state, rest?
Old people used to be allowed to retire to their rocking chairs and watch the world go by. After a lifetime of toil and trouble, few rockers felt a compulsion to keep up with the increasing speed of that world that went by without them.
Yes, Margaret may get a few more weeks or even months of mobility from her physical therapy. But as soon as the physical therapy runs out, I feel certain she will return to her old shuffling ways. And why shouldn’t she? When you’re eighty-nine years old and have to haul two hundred and seventy-five pounds around on weak ankles, you should get a prize simply for managing to shuffle.
So why do we try to keep people from quitting when it’s perfectly obvious they’re tired and ready to rock? Why isn’t quitting a perfectly reasonable option? Why do we make quitting sound like a moral failing?
Our objections are not really for the benefit of the weary quitter, I’m afraid. I think we insist out of fear. Our uneasiness arises from two different sources. For one, fear that we haven’t done all we might for our loved ones if we don’t keep badgering them to try harder. The other source is horror at imagining ourselves in their diminishing condition. If we can keep the shufflers picking up their feet in a sprightly gait, if the Margarets in our lives can keep putting one foot in front of the other, it enhances our own chances of remaining active and vigorous in our old age.
But there’s a limit to vigor and a pleasure in rest.
my body also shall rest in hope.
Psalm 16
Margaret, my well-beloved cousin (once-removed) is eighty-nine years old. She inherited both a cheerful and generous disposition and weak ankles from her father. Her ankles far sag inward under her considerable weight. Because of this, for several years now she has simply slid her feet forward a few inches at a time instead of picking them up when she walks. She feels more and more unsteady as she ages and fears a fall, of which she has had several already. Fortunately, her substantial padding and her penchant for falling in flowerbeds rather than the sidewalk has saved her from injury so far.
Margaret’s driver’s license was up for renewal on her last birthday. Unsure of herself behind the wheel, she asked the inspector at the Highway Department if he thought she ought to renew her driver’s license, which would expire when she was ninety-nine.
The man took a deep breath. He had obviously been faced with dilemma before. He tapped his clipboard against his leg, stalling. Finally he said, “Well, can you turn your head to look over your shoulder?”
Margaret tried the maneuver. She could turn her chin almost to her shoulder but no farther.
“So,” she tells me during our regular morning phone call the next day, “I decided the Lord was using that to tell me I ought to give up driving.”
I breathe a silent prayer of thanks.
The Lord plays a large part in Margaret’s array of ways for coping with aging. Margaret watched my mother decline into dementia seven years ago. Like most of us, Margaret fears the possibility of facing that same fate. She consoles herself thus: “I just pray the Lord comes again before I lose my mind.”
When the Lord intervened in her drivers license renewal, Cousin Margaret’s family and friends, whatever their spiritual standing, praised Margaret’s Lord for his foresight. They no longer have to worry about her endangering her life and that of others on the highway.
Another benefit accrued to Margaret after the sacrifice of her driver’s license. She found herself officially eligible for Medicare services to the housebound. Her doctor, concerned about her unsteadiness, prescribed a round of physical therapy for her.
Alice comes twice a week to help Margaret improve her walking – or as the professionals call it, “gait training.” Alice and Margaret have worked up to a half dozen laps across Margaret’s living room.
“I’m done in,” she tells me, following one of Alice’s visits. “And sore. It takes me the whole next day just to get over the therapy.”
I thought about that and a question concerning aging formed in my mind: When should an old person, especially one as old as Margaret, be allowed to just give up? When should we, family and so-called health care professionals alike, stop pestering them to keep on going, improving their gait or watching their diet or broadening their interests and just let them be. Let them, blessed state, rest?
Old people used to be allowed to retire to their rocking chairs and watch the world go by. After a lifetime of toil and trouble, few rockers felt a compulsion to keep up with the increasing speed of that world that went by without them.
Yes, Margaret may get a few more weeks or even months of mobility from her physical therapy. But as soon as the physical therapy runs out, I feel certain she will return to her old shuffling ways. And why shouldn’t she? When you’re eighty-nine years old and have to haul two hundred and seventy-five pounds around on weak ankles, you should get a prize simply for managing to shuffle.
So why do we try to keep people from quitting when it’s perfectly obvious they’re tired and ready to rock? Why isn’t quitting a perfectly reasonable option? Why do we make quitting sound like a moral failing?
Our objections are not really for the benefit of the weary quitter, I’m afraid. I think we insist out of fear. Our uneasiness arises from two different sources. For one, fear that we haven’t done all we might for our loved ones if we don’t keep badgering them to try harder. The other source is horror at imagining ourselves in their diminishing condition. If we can keep the shufflers picking up their feet in a sprightly gait, if the Margarets in our lives can keep putting one foot in front of the other, it enhances our own chances of remaining active and vigorous in our old age.
But there’s a limit to vigor and a pleasure in rest.
Monday, February 15, 2010
An Old Dog
An Old Dog
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Psalm 139: 6
Our grandchildren’s dog Micah, a fifteen-year-old American Es-kimo, is nearing his end. He has been hit by cars twice, has bad hips and some mornings has to be carried outdoors to pee. He is stone deaf and is going blind. Un-der his thick white coat lurk multi-ple large warts the vet says are merely tumors that come with ag-ing. He says there’s nothing to be done about them and that they are no cause for worry.
The family did worry, however, when Micah finally got to his feet yesterday morning, his head tilted sideways, his tongue lolling from his mouth, and started walking around in circles. Had he had a stroke? Was he going to die?
The children, teenagers now, have grown up with this dog and, despite his annoying habits of in-cessant barking when left out-doors and, in his better days, chasing the cat indoors, he has been like a troublesome little brother to them.
But when I suggested to Aud-rey, almost 18 now, the possibility of having Micah put down, she was horrified by the idea.
“Just because he’s old and smelly is no reason to kill him, Grandmother,” she protested. “I mean, how would you like it if someone did that to you just be-cause you’re . . .?”
Dear Audrey’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I meant anyone old, not you in particular,”
I assured her I had taken no of-fense at being compared to an old and smelly dog.
Actually, Audrey’s way of pos-ing the question had amused me. She’s so young that age is still an empty category for her, like Nean-derthal architecture or Farsi. She knows it exists, but has no experi-ence of it. To her, old means wrin-kles and iPod ignorance, both of which I own up to. But she can’t imagine herself with either condi-tion.
As for me, I can’t even text on my cell phone. I also resent the use of “text” as a verb.
Learning new tricks, whether by dogs or people, gets harder as we age. Fortunately our own dog, Tilly, an aged poodle, went to obe-dience school before we inherited her some 13 years ago. She can still respond to commands to heel and sit, if reluctantly. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t teach her to roll over now though.
Most animals like routine and resist change. Our dog expects to be fed at the same time and place everyday, to sleep in the same spot, and go out at routine inter-vals. My cat insists on her saucer of milk first thing in the morning. My six chickens all lay their eggs in the same nest.
Resistance to change isn’t lim-ited to domestic animals. My mother and I once took my grand-father, nearing 90 then, on a tour of the small town where he had grown up. We intended the outing as a pleasant diversion for him, a little trip down memory lane.
It wasn’t. His memories were quite different from what we en-countered that day. Of all the places he’d known – his school, his home, even the streets he had traveled had changed. Or were now nonexistent. Only the old courthouse still stood, saved from change by its designation as an historical building.
My grandfather kept giving my mother directions she couldn’t possibly follow because the roads had been paved and rerouted or renamed. They were lined with stores and fast food franchises that had never existed in his youth.
These changes to his vanished memories confused and angered him. At the time I was irritated by his unreasonable accusations that my mother was deliberately hiding his old haunts from him. Today I understand his frustration better.
I will go to great lengths to avoid having to learn a new com-puter program. I do not enjoy the adventure of discovering where they’ve hidden the peanut butter when the supermarket decides to shuffle its shelves. Why can’t the tomatoes and spaghetti and tea and pickles stay in the same place?
On the other hand, I am learning some new tricks. To wit: I don’t have to say yes to every request. If I don’t feel well, I can stay in bed as long as I want. If a conversation grinds to a halt, I’ve learned to ask a question. People usually love to tell you their stories. I can ask my doctor questions – and not leave till I get an answer.
Best of all, I’ve learned that I’m not through learning the truly im-portant things. Patience. How un-satisfying blame is. Keeping my mouth appropriately shut. Waiting upon the Lord. Listening for his voice. Releasing my anxieties into the soothing solvent of his love.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Psalm 139: 6
Our grandchildren’s dog Micah, a fifteen-year-old American Es-kimo, is nearing his end. He has been hit by cars twice, has bad hips and some mornings has to be carried outdoors to pee. He is stone deaf and is going blind. Un-der his thick white coat lurk multi-ple large warts the vet says are merely tumors that come with ag-ing. He says there’s nothing to be done about them and that they are no cause for worry.
The family did worry, however, when Micah finally got to his feet yesterday morning, his head tilted sideways, his tongue lolling from his mouth, and started walking around in circles. Had he had a stroke? Was he going to die?
The children, teenagers now, have grown up with this dog and, despite his annoying habits of in-cessant barking when left out-doors and, in his better days, chasing the cat indoors, he has been like a troublesome little brother to them.
But when I suggested to Aud-rey, almost 18 now, the possibility of having Micah put down, she was horrified by the idea.
“Just because he’s old and smelly is no reason to kill him, Grandmother,” she protested. “I mean, how would you like it if someone did that to you just be-cause you’re . . .?”
Dear Audrey’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I meant anyone old, not you in particular,”
I assured her I had taken no of-fense at being compared to an old and smelly dog.
Actually, Audrey’s way of pos-ing the question had amused me. She’s so young that age is still an empty category for her, like Nean-derthal architecture or Farsi. She knows it exists, but has no experi-ence of it. To her, old means wrin-kles and iPod ignorance, both of which I own up to. But she can’t imagine herself with either condi-tion.
As for me, I can’t even text on my cell phone. I also resent the use of “text” as a verb.
Learning new tricks, whether by dogs or people, gets harder as we age. Fortunately our own dog, Tilly, an aged poodle, went to obe-dience school before we inherited her some 13 years ago. She can still respond to commands to heel and sit, if reluctantly. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t teach her to roll over now though.
Most animals like routine and resist change. Our dog expects to be fed at the same time and place everyday, to sleep in the same spot, and go out at routine inter-vals. My cat insists on her saucer of milk first thing in the morning. My six chickens all lay their eggs in the same nest.
Resistance to change isn’t lim-ited to domestic animals. My mother and I once took my grand-father, nearing 90 then, on a tour of the small town where he had grown up. We intended the outing as a pleasant diversion for him, a little trip down memory lane.
It wasn’t. His memories were quite different from what we en-countered that day. Of all the places he’d known – his school, his home, even the streets he had traveled had changed. Or were now nonexistent. Only the old courthouse still stood, saved from change by its designation as an historical building.
My grandfather kept giving my mother directions she couldn’t possibly follow because the roads had been paved and rerouted or renamed. They were lined with stores and fast food franchises that had never existed in his youth.
These changes to his vanished memories confused and angered him. At the time I was irritated by his unreasonable accusations that my mother was deliberately hiding his old haunts from him. Today I understand his frustration better.
I will go to great lengths to avoid having to learn a new com-puter program. I do not enjoy the adventure of discovering where they’ve hidden the peanut butter when the supermarket decides to shuffle its shelves. Why can’t the tomatoes and spaghetti and tea and pickles stay in the same place?
On the other hand, I am learning some new tricks. To wit: I don’t have to say yes to every request. If I don’t feel well, I can stay in bed as long as I want. If a conversation grinds to a halt, I’ve learned to ask a question. People usually love to tell you their stories. I can ask my doctor questions – and not leave till I get an answer.
Best of all, I’ve learned that I’m not through learning the truly im-portant things. Patience. How un-satisfying blame is. Keeping my mouth appropriately shut. Waiting upon the Lord. Listening for his voice. Releasing my anxieties into the soothing solvent of his love.
Numbering Our Days
Numbering Our Days
So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
Numbering my days is a habitual preoccupation with me now. How much longer do I have? In this life As that number shrinks, the more I am conscious of the need to apply my heart to wisdom. Or as the King James Version has it, “to get a heart of wisdom.”
Actuarial charts supposedly help with the numbering part of the task. They factor in various health risks, one’s gender, how long your own parents lived. I don’t smoke, am not overweight, eat a healthful diet and exercise as much as I can. My parents lived into their eighties. If I follow their pattern, I reckon I will too.
So should I count on another twenty years? Do I want another twenty years? Not particularly, considering that my mother lived the last decade of her life in the throes of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Those years were a trial to our family and a nightmare for her.
Moreover, my own bodily afflictions, minor though they are compared to hers, on some days make me eager to shuffle off the miseries of this mortal coil.. My life has taken twists and turns that sometimes led to dead-ends, but that’s what lives do.. No one I know has had the happily-ever-after life we all think we want. Most mornings I wake up grateful for where my life has landed. In fact, I really have nothing more to ask of life. Nor would I have the energy to undertake more anyway.
When I apply my heart to wisdom, I confront truths not based on lengthening my days. . First of all, actuarial charts deal only with average life spans, not individuals. I might die sitting here at my computer at any moment. For none of us really know the full number of our days. We can only number them day by day, one at a time. Pondering one’s end may be wisdom; trying to predict one’s end is not. At best, such an attempt is pointless. At worst, it leads to fear or disappointment.
So what is the point of numbering my days? How does it get me a heart of wisdom?
Psalm 90 puts the average life span at seventy – which would mean three more years for me – “or by reason of strength, four score.” In that case, I would have another thirteen years.
I try that on to see how it feels. How would I live if I knew I had three more years? How would it differ from living thirteen more? Would I blow my shrinking retirement account in three years on big travel plans? But travel isn’t as comfortable as it used to be. And like many old people, I don’t like being separated from my own bed for long. Would I pay for my graduating granddaughter’s first year in college? Or would I buy my husband the Jaguar he’s always wanted?
If the money had to be spread over thirteen years, however, I’d probably just choose a new fence for my chicken yard and dole out the rest in cost-of-living increases.
Linking longevity to my financial resources isn’t simple materialism. If one‘s heart lies where one’s treasure is, following the money can show me what I truly value. Finding the map to where my treasure lies buried – that’s what I call wisdom.
So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
Numbering my days is a habitual preoccupation with me now. How much longer do I have? In this life As that number shrinks, the more I am conscious of the need to apply my heart to wisdom. Or as the King James Version has it, “to get a heart of wisdom.”
Actuarial charts supposedly help with the numbering part of the task. They factor in various health risks, one’s gender, how long your own parents lived. I don’t smoke, am not overweight, eat a healthful diet and exercise as much as I can. My parents lived into their eighties. If I follow their pattern, I reckon I will too.
So should I count on another twenty years? Do I want another twenty years? Not particularly, considering that my mother lived the last decade of her life in the throes of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Those years were a trial to our family and a nightmare for her.
Moreover, my own bodily afflictions, minor though they are compared to hers, on some days make me eager to shuffle off the miseries of this mortal coil.. My life has taken twists and turns that sometimes led to dead-ends, but that’s what lives do.. No one I know has had the happily-ever-after life we all think we want. Most mornings I wake up grateful for where my life has landed. In fact, I really have nothing more to ask of life. Nor would I have the energy to undertake more anyway.
When I apply my heart to wisdom, I confront truths not based on lengthening my days. . First of all, actuarial charts deal only with average life spans, not individuals. I might die sitting here at my computer at any moment. For none of us really know the full number of our days. We can only number them day by day, one at a time. Pondering one’s end may be wisdom; trying to predict one’s end is not. At best, such an attempt is pointless. At worst, it leads to fear or disappointment.
So what is the point of numbering my days? How does it get me a heart of wisdom?
Psalm 90 puts the average life span at seventy – which would mean three more years for me – “or by reason of strength, four score.” In that case, I would have another thirteen years.
I try that on to see how it feels. How would I live if I knew I had three more years? How would it differ from living thirteen more? Would I blow my shrinking retirement account in three years on big travel plans? But travel isn’t as comfortable as it used to be. And like many old people, I don’t like being separated from my own bed for long. Would I pay for my graduating granddaughter’s first year in college? Or would I buy my husband the Jaguar he’s always wanted?
If the money had to be spread over thirteen years, however, I’d probably just choose a new fence for my chicken yard and dole out the rest in cost-of-living increases.
Linking longevity to my financial resources isn’t simple materialism. If one‘s heart lies where one’s treasure is, following the money can show me what I truly value. Finding the map to where my treasure lies buried – that’s what I call wisdom.
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