To be still, and still moving: 2nd half life blessings
T.S. Eliot, in part of a poem directed to second half life travelers, captivates us with an image of exploration. "Old people ought to be explorers. Here or there does not matter. We must be still, and still moving, into another intensity, for a further union, a deeper communion." This blog is dedicated to our 2HC's 2022-2023 Cohort who for ten months explored together a sustainable spirituality for the second half of life. To honor the participants, our six 2HC facilitators share the blessings they received from the Cohort and in turn speak a blessing over them.
Savoring Our Receivements
Even though I am on the 2HC facilitation team helping with content and coaching, 2HC has mostly been a place for me of receiving: the joy of collaboration, the sweetness of finding that God is indeed present in all things and in all of life, the camaraderie of honest sharing with other friends on the road.
In many ways for those who are actively engaged in mission, my experience mirrors the journey of all of us into the “second half” of life. Even as our achievements, skills and knowledge banks grow, we recognize that all of life is really a gift. We learn to savor our “receivements” rather than our achievements. This helps us to experience an unhurried pace, greater gladness in simple things and in honest friendships. For these gifts I am so grateful. Thank you to those in 2HC who have helped me to be a receiver of good gifts from God! ~ by Jamey Lewis
Living as a Reservoir that Fills and Overflows
Every time I get off my monthly small group Campfire Call, I tell my husband, “I love this group!” It has been a joy to go on this journey with each of you through the three retreats and campfire meetings. I love the discussions around all ten of the 2HC Stations and have appreciated the honest, vulnerable discussion that has enriched my soul. I truly believe that spiritual formation in community is essential for growth. I once had a wise mentor say, “The road to spiritual maturity is in the car pool lane,” and it has been a pleasure to ride the “Kingdom Commute” with you!
I pray that all that you do overflows from the deep knowledge of your belovedness in Him.
In closing, I want to share one of my favorite quotes from Bernard of Clairvaux:
“If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, and a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself communicates its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day we have many canals but few reservoirs.”
I pray you will be an overflowing reservoir. ~by Carol Weaver
A Growth that Transcends and Integrates
What a gift each of you have been to each other. I particularly remember a small group experience when we let go of assumptions of how things should be and counterintuitively dropped our masks between each other. The deep silence we cultivated after holding each other’s stories is a rare treasure. It was noteworthy to help a wider group through the immunity to change process uncovering shadow self in Station Two.
As we walk further into our second half of life, I bless you with a polarity I learned from Andrew: Transcend & Integrate.
Take all we have learned together, and let it deepen, enlighten, shake up, transform and transcend. And to the same degree you transcend, make patterns, rhythms, a rule of life and integrate. I pray you have also encountered some other folks that you need not leave behind, but can extend and deepen your community with and among. ~by Dano
Answer the “Who?” and the “What?” Will Follow
May your True Self be unleashed. May it obtain a full-color set of extra-thick sharpies and — with utmost joy, confident conviction, and breathtaking artistry — be given permission to absolutely go to town decorating your “cardboard sign.” With your “Who am I?” question answered so fully, may your “What should I do?” question simply take care of itself. May you leave behind those days when discerning your “life contributions” in the absence of your cardboard sign felt like trying to wring water out of a towel that had just come out of the dryer. To the contrary, may you, from this day forward, experience the ease of being like a towel that has just been pulled out of the ocean, sopping wet, unable to contain all the water that so effortlessly pours out from it. `~by Andrew Richey
Beauty that Emerges In The Back Half of Life
The things we discussed, the life decisions, the lines in the sand, the ruminating on how to live a different kind of life – it was like each month we were suddenly standing in a different world together. I love the “different world” we reflected on – like the blind man asking Jesus for new eyes to see, or the person who sold everything to purchase a field in order to obtain the hidden treasure. There’s such incredible beauty in seeking a different way of living, of seeing. To hold each other’s stories in the holiness of the moment, knowing that something special, something truly beautiful was happening. We were crossing the first half of life threshold to the second, together.
John O’Donohue once said that “a threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit. How we cross the threshold is the key”. Each small group felt like crossing a different threshold toward the beauty of the second half of life.
O’Donohue continues, “Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness; beauty is about a more rounded, substantial becoming. And I think when we cross a new threshold, that if we cross worthily, what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere. And in our crossing, then, we cross onto new ground where we just don’t repeat what we’ve been through in the last place we were. I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”
Beauty in the back half of life – that’s our hope – and the worthiness of the new kind of life calling us... ~by Ed McManness
The Joy and Wisdom of YOU TOO? Friends
C.S. Lewis defines a friend as someone who looks at you and exclaims, “You, too?”
In our 2HC cohort, I have happily discovered many of these You, too? friends. Friends who circle back to the truth of their belovedness and discover it all over again, as though for the first time. Friends who relish noticing and slowing. Who actually believe they are allowed to rest, imagine that! Who are courageous enough to truly name and lament losses. And who talk about “managing polarities” and “immunity to change” and “life integration” with at first a quizzical look and a “What??” to then talking about these with ease and encouraging insights.
I leave you with one of my favorite second-half-life-blessing prayers. ~ by Fran Love
A KINGDOM PRAYER
"It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view...
the kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise
that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying
that the kingdom lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, and no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about: We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.”This prayer was first presented by Cardinal Dearden in 1979 and quoted by Pope Francis in 2015. This reflection is an excerpt from a homily written for Cardinal Dearden by then-Fr. Ken Untener on the occasion of the Mass for Deceased Priests, October 25, 1979.
