Rome, Jerusalem Haifa, Mecca, Fatima, Bodh Gaya, Haridwar, Amritsar, sacred trees…images of the ageing journeying through these sacred spaces flit across my mind. Sacred means awe and reverence, numinous, worthy, associated with divinity and it constitutes a collection of thoughts and practices which serve as norms for the performance of everyday life. Though it evades precise formulation, faith in a broad sense encompasses systems of belief, tradition and practice enacted in life. In this holy labyrinth of ageing and faith, personal aspects, places of worship, community organisations and country policies intersect.
The longevity revolution, an accolade to advances in the health system, has resulted in a profound demographic shift with an exponential increase in older individuals. The shifting age distribution in the world, with declining fertility and mortality in some regions and variations in migration, herald unique challenges beyond homogenous understandings of the elderly. Constructions of older people often involve stigmatised identities with prevailing narratives abounding around ageism, fragility, vulnerability and a socio-economic burden. Pope Francis, himself an aged man, notes that old age is one of the most urgent issues facing the human family.
Many ageing individuals have contributed to society economically and as they age some draw on faith to deepen and embellish their life journey. However, there is limited scholarship in how faith is inhabited during the layered, golden autumn years of life. My research encounters seek to unfold these layers through the framework of intersectional ageing. A multidimensional concept, intersectional ageing refers to the complex braiding of age, wellbeing, culture, work, migration, faith, physical, psychological, cognitive, mental and social domains in later life. This intersectional gaze is a dynamic scaffold which differs based on myriad contexts such as geographical location, policies and practices.
Ancient Rome’s Cicero wrote on old age posing its challenges and opportunities. Solon, the ancient Greek lawgiver, discussed ten stages of seven years each and Hippocrates theory of ageing discussed the infinite quantity of the vial force that each person is bestowed with. Both the Greeks and Romans viewed older people as endowed with wisdom. In India, the four stages of life or abodes include that of a student (Brahmacharya), householder (Grhastha), the forest dweller (Vanaprastha) and the renunciate/sage (Sanyasa). For some Indigenous peoples such as those from the First Nations there are seven stages of life: good life, fast life, wandering life, truth, planning and planting, doing and the elder life with giving back. In New Zealand, the indigenous people Māori refer to their elders as Kaumatua and Kuia and generally held in high esteem with important roles as leaders, keepers and transmitters of knowledge, preserving traditions and nurturing future leaders.
Three intersecting themes emerge on a spectrum with unique scripts based on my qualitative interpretive research encounters with the elderly: comfort, grief and service.
Comfort
There is comfort in the knowledge that God answers prayers with faith in God’s goodness and power. A woman aged 91 stated, “God is my first love and then my walking stick!”. A man aged 75 who just celebrated his golden wedding said, “My wife is second, God is first.” Another man in his seventies who has failing health stated, “I have had so many near-death experiences that each day is a gift.” And a woman in her 60s said “My religion is humanity – that is my faith.” Through inner workings these elderly endure with redemptive interconnections and virtuous responses. They replenish themselves through prayer, frequenting places of worship and appraising life’s dramas as compelling routes to salvation in the afterlife. Faith serves as a shelter with restfulness, contentment and acceptance of life with luminosity and learning. There is a sweetness in their faith journeys, and some choose to use the gift of years to do a pilgrimage such as walking the al Camino Santiago de Compostela or visiting Rishikesh in the Himalayas.
Grief
This theme emphasises aches, yearnings, loss, powerlessness and humiliations. The focus is on vulnerability, wrinkles, cramps, pessimism, self-pity, indignities, embarrassment and loss of independence. Elder abuse heightens feelings of grief and faith is questioned. A widow her 80s said “Lord why have you forgotten me? What is the use of this mortal body? I would rather die and join my husband.” A man in his 60s remarked, “I have become the wretched of the earth with too many tragedies – my life has no purpose… I have seen too many broken promises.” A woman in her 70s tried to assuage her grief with the words of Abdu’l-Bahá “Grief and sorrow do not come to us by chance, they are sent to us by the Divine Mercy for our own perfecting” but she found that she was gripped in a vortex of loneliness and suffering.
Service
Beyond contractual frames, service provides dignity, wellbeing and quality of life through active ministry, caregiving and mourning with those who experience tragedy and death. As a woman in her 80s said “I have learnt to flourish within my frailty and fragility. I try to live each day to the full, because my life may be snuffed out in the next moment.” A man in his 70s said “I enjoy the grandkids – I try to be the change I want to see in the world.” A woman in her 60s said, “I reflect and share my wisdom, I arrange the flowers in church for the services and this gives me much pleasure to create beauty for God and the parishioners.” A woman in her 90s said “I have run the race I am trying to blot out my transgressions and rely on God’s grace in all its wonders and therefore I serve others – it is a blessing to be seen and heard.”
These individuals see themselves as stewards or kaitiaki of God’s creation and their faith is like the engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hahn, or that of the concept of ubuntu – a person is a person through others.
Searching for Significance
In the quest for significance through faith, the dictum of Khalil Gibran - Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of life is relevant. We need new narratives of dignity, justice, autonomy and care with forward looking policies for ageing well. The stereotype of elderly people as “doddering but dear” is in flux. As the Indigenous Crowfoot/Blackfoot state – what is life a firefly in the night, a shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset?
There is a story of an old woman who wanted to go to a sacred mountain. On the way she had to stop due to a storm and a kind innkeeper gave her shelter. He advised her not to continue on her journey as the weather was too inclement, but she said, ‘My heart got there first, so the rest of me will follow.’ In a woven universe we are all interconnected, and the ageing are a living covenant as wisdom carriers, the lamps who light the way or in the words of the poet Mary Oliver ‘Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more, and some days I feel I have wings.’
About the Author
Emeritus Professor Edwina Pio ONZM is an Associate Professorial Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, a Research Fellow at Black Friars Hall Oxford, and Visiting Professor at Turku University, Finland.
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