The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister, A Review

Joan Chittister/Benedictine Sisters of Erie

Every once in a while a book comes along that is overflowing with wisdom; such a book is Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully. She tackles the ‘final chapter’ of living with uncommon grace, wit, clarity, insight, and warmth.

Here’s an example: “The problem is that preparation for aging in our modern society seems to be concentrated almost entirely on buying anti-wrinkle creams and joining a health club – when the truth is that what must be transformed now is not so much the way we look to other people, as it is the way we look at life.”

Chittister writes about the underlying issue when dealing with aging. “Life changes… Change is obvious. It will come whether we like it or not… The real issue is far more subtle than that… It is not the change that will destroy us. It is the attitude we take to it that will make all the difference. The frame of mind we bring to it gives meaning to the end of one phase of life, of course. But more than that, it also determines the spiritual depth with which we start this new phase.”

Chittister observes, “Who hasn’t gone through a period in life when they wished they could simply disappear and start all over again? What most of us do not realize is that today old age is that new life. And most of us deal with it, in one way or another. The gift is recognizing the potential of it, both spiritual and social, and knowing what to do with it.”

Relationships are key to a full life, and for Chittister, that especially includes older age. “The fact is that relationships are the alchemy of life. They turn the dross of dailiness into gold. They make human community real. They provide what we need and wait in turn for us to give back. They are a sign of the presence of a loving God in life. There is no such thing at any stage of human development as life without relationships.”

Within The Gift of Years, Chittister offers two choices to aging – passive or active aging. “Passive aging gives way to the creeping paralysis of the soul that goes with the natural changes of the body. This kind of aging sees this last stage of life as a time in the throes of slow death rather than a time to live differently – and dauntlessly. Active aging cooperates with the physical effects of age by adjusting to a change of pace. The person who is aging actively compensates for a loss of hearing by reading more compensates for changes in eyesight by listening to tapes, and stays physically active, however limited that activity may be… Active aging requires us to go on living life to the full no matter how differently.”

And Chittister has some sharp criticism for the all-too-common view of aging in industrialized societies. “The tendency to talk down to older people comes from stereotypes of incompetence that have been so much the caricatures we’ve drawn of older people once they have left the workforce. Instead of honoring the wisdom and experience of the generations before us… industrial/technological society infantilizes anyone whose life is no longer caught up in the skills and languages of that world.”

For Chittister, this time of life is one that affords immense beauty in the pondering of relationships. “I have the quiet time, to think it all through – everywhere I’ve been, everyone I’ve known, everything I’ve done in life with all the glories and all the sad mistakes, all the successes and all the personal failures – and to be glad for all of it. There is not one of them that did not teach me something about life. There is not one of them that did not make me stronger. And they are all me. They are everything I bring to this time now – when the only question yet to answer in life is what I have become.”

In The Gift of Years, Chittister makes a connection between American culture’s life-long lack of the ability to reflect, and its effect on how we view older age. “Americans, researchers tell us, have much less reflection time than almost any other culture in the modern world.”

Americans vacation less, work more, and are paying a steep price for it.

On the other hand, even if society seems to shy away from the discussion on aging, it doesn’t have to stop individuals from growing into it gracefully. “Aging well is the real goal of life. To allow ourselves to age without vitality, without energy, without purpose, without growth is simply to get old rather than to age well as we go.”

Chittister makes a direct connection between the ability to reflect and the ability to handle the inevitable loss of friends as we grow older. The solution, she says, is in how we handle solitude.

“It’s not the rare elderly person who lives alone nowadays. It’s almost all of them. Everywhere. Aloneness is the new monastery of the elderly.” She continues, “The problem with solitude is that we often confuse it with aloneness or isolation. Isolation means that we are cut off from the rest of the world by circumstances over which we have no control… Isolation, in other words, is either separation or alienation from the world around us. Solitude is something quite different. Solitude is chosen. It is the act of being alone in order to be with ourselves. We seek solitude for the sake of the soul… Solitude opens us to the wonders of a world without noise, a world without clutter…”

Since we have a soul, Chittister weaves in this reality throughout her book. “What we too often fail to realize is that living fully depends a great deal more on our frame of mind, on our fundamental spirituality, than it does on our physical condition. If we see God as good, we see life as good. If we see God as a kind of sly and insidious Judge, tempting us with good things in order to see if we can be seduced into some sort of moral depravity by them, then life is a trap to be feared.”

It’s Chittister’s contention that the choices we make, in large part, determine what sort of life we live, including how we live the last years of it.

“[P]art of the problem is also that, too often, the older we get, the less we ourselves keep contact with the world around us. We call no one, write to no one, socialize with no one. As if there were no place for us in life, no one who needs us, no one who waits for our calls as much as we wait for theirs. There is then another reality to be reckoned with when we bemoan the isolation that so often comes as we get older. It is ourselves. Outreach is at the kernel of getting older. The fact is that we don’t have to be isolated if we don’t want to isolate ourselves. We need to go out to meet the rest of the world, rather than wait for the world to come to us.”

Another helpful hint in viewing the aging process, and seeing it in a positive way is generativity, which Chittister defines as “the act of giving ourselves to the needs of the rest of the world.” It is, she says, “the single most important function of old age.” She points to a Harvard study that concluded that it was the characteristic of generativity that was the key factor in determining successful aging “not money, not education, not family.”

In conclusion, Chittister writes about the wealth of meaning and fullness that awaits us in old age! “The present of old age, the age we bring to the present, unveils to us the invisibility of meaning. Everything in life is meaningful – once we come to see it, to experience it, to look for it. Once we really come into the fullness of the present. Then we cease to take life for granted. Life is now. Only now. But who of us has ever much stopped to notice it?... The task of life now [in old age] is simply, life. What we haven’t lived till now is waiting for us still. Behind every moment the spirit of life, the God of life, waits. Every small thing we do is meant to take us deeper into its substance.”

Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully is an encouragement and a call to live such a life.