On the sermons page of this website is the sermon Handley Stevens preached last night at Evensong “Towards a theology for ageing“. Listening to that sermon I was inspired to reflect further on the theological dimensions of ageing. How might our beliefs affect the way in which we come to the last stage of our lives, and how might that final stage affect what we believe?
Handley identifies contemporary sociology’s four stages of life, the third age being active retirement and the fourth a decline into senility and death. It is not unusual to hear the end of life referred to as a decline. Even Shakespeare refers to ‘the lean and slippered pantaloon’,who gives way to a ‘second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’
And yet what if we were to think of ageing as an ascent rather than a decline – a climbing into the light and the finest view of all? Up until the 17th century books were still being produced on the theme of Holy Dying – guide books to prepare you for death – or Ars Moriendi (the Art of Dying) as they were known in the Middle Ages. Much of such documents was concerned with reviewing one’s past life, repenting of sin and preparing for the judgment of God beyond death. But they could also include meditations on the condition of heaven and one’s readiness to be there. To rephrase a quotation from Isaac Walton, ‘Is there anything of heaven in me before I am in heaven?’ It may sound presumptuous and yet as Herbert’s famous poem ‘Love’ indicates, it is necessary not only to think about one’s sins -“I, the unkind, ungrateful’ – but also and more importantly to accept Love’s invitation to ‘sit and eat.’
Images of heaven, especially in modern liturgy, often concentrate on the heavenly banquet. In the Renaissance the image of the garden – the restored paradise – was more prominent. The High Middle Ages often represent heaven in the style of the hymn ‘Jerusalem the Golden’ (NEH 381) with its ‘social joys’, ‘radiancy of glory’ ‘conjubilant with song.’ The word ‘glory’ contains within its origins both the idea of giving glory and that to which glory is given.
Humpty Dumpty famously said to Alice that ‘Glory’ could mean whatever he wanted it to mean, when she asked him what he meant by saying, ‘There’s glory for you.’ But, as so often in Lewis Carol there is a hint of truth in his foolishness. HD uses the phrase first in the context of there being 364 days in the year for un-birthday presents, and goes on to explain that for him ‘glory’ means a ‘nice knock-down argument.’ Alice is right to be both puzzled and suspicious of Humpty Dumpty. Dictators have been known to impose their rule with dazzling displays of grandeur. And yet true glory is defined by the one who is truly glorious – in whose presence suspicion and argument come to an end because here we see what we were looking for, aspiring to, most profoundly desiring all our lives – the heaven in which we are fulfilled by giving glory to the one who is truly glorious. In Archbishop Michael Ramsey’s final sermon, each time he said the word ‘glory’ it came out as a shout, and on his death bed, it was, it is said, the only word he could say.
Shortly before Ramsey died, he had read the following words of an old friend Reggie Cant, whose funeral he had just attended: ‘More difficult is to learn to hand over to God one’s willingness to be old and feeble, to enter a second childhood in which one loses all one’s adult dignity, and is stripped of all one’s painfully acquired knowledge, and has to begin all over again at the mercy of other people…’ what we might call the death that begins while we are still alive. And of course this is something we fear and something which is also deeply painful for those we love. And yet need we see it as a decline, or is it at some level a preparation for rebirth?
The fear has to do perhaps with the loss of our sense of identity. Dying is the greatest test of who we are. So much of the time we define ourselves by what we do and what we know and what we surround ourselves with, and as that slips away so we are left with a sense of emptiness and isolation, of having nothing to take with us. We can sympathise with the priest in Greene’s ‘The Power and the Glory’: ‘He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all.’
Preparing for death is then also a rethinking of what we really mean by ‘loving our neighbour as ourself.’ Do we love our neighbours for their wealth or position or intelligence or do we seek to love them, to desire their flourishing and well being, simply because they are human like ourselves? Of course our natural limitations mean that we would find it overwhelming to try to treat everyone in this way, but the challenge is always there with the people we are given as neighbours in every aspect of our lives. Do we see them as lovable simply because they are human – do we therefore try at least to see them through God’s eyes and do we also therefore try to see and love ourselves in the same way?
Growing old forces us to see ourselves in the round and not in pieces – simply to see and accept the whole person we are and so become more free to find joy in the things in front of us and to love the people around us. For in the end, the joy and the love are what God wills to extend and multiply inexpressibly in his eternal presence.
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker