At this stage of my life, I find that I no longer take many things too seriously. I confess to feeling a bit detached from all of the political machinations that would once have had me pulling out my hair. But on the eve of my 89th birthday, I recognize that I have lived a good life and fought the good fight, but now it’s my time to let go. Like the trees that first burn bright with flaming color before their leaves fall, we who have outlived our period of productivity can now revel in this gift of time for letting go.
Many of my friends have had to let go of their homes where they raised their children and spent most of their professional lives in order to go to a continuing care facility. Having others there to help care for them has given them a sense of security and peace of mind. But there are those who cannot afford that kind of care, and they muddle on with whatever help their families can provide until they end up in a nursing home. That was the journey of a friend. Looking from the outside in, I grieved for him at first, but he claims that he is happier now than he has ever been in his life. Even though the nursing home has taken all of his resources and he is bound to a wheelchair, all of his needs are met, and his life is free of anxiety and worry giving him a new sense of freedom. Another dear friend finds that her time constricted to a motorized chair and being dependent on others to care for her has freed her to enter into a wondrous relationship with Sophia, or the Holy Spirit. Her life is filled with joy and a deep sense of fulfillment.
Jesus and the Old Testament Prophets cautioned us against becoming entangled with the world’s lust for wealth and power, but we humans seem to be slow learners. Each generation seems to need to relearn the lessons about the dangers of putting our trust in the world’s riches. Tragically, the church has also succumbed to the allure of money and power far too often.
But for all of us, there comes a stage of life, early or late in years, in which all the money in the world cannot buy us more time. Most of us, like my friend who died in her early forties from breast cancer, find, as she did, that the closer she came to death, the more at peace she became until she literally died with a smile on her face. Death is the ultimate act of letting go.
On this past Sunday, we discussed the passage where Jesus told a would-be disciple who wanted to first go home and bury his father to let the dead bury their dead. This passage takes on new meaning as I sit here and write about letting go because it speaks to those of us who are older but who cling to our material possessions just in case we might need them sometime in the future. Yet old age is the pinnacle of our life when we find ourselves with the luxury of letting go of our stuff and accumulated savings, especially so we can use them to help others. There is great peace of mind in letting go of what is “mine” and recognizing all we have has been entrusted to us to use these gifts for such a time as this.