The traditional title of this piece is "17th Century nun's prayer;"
the author, however, is unknown.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms,
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history
Is second childishness and mere oblivion:
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Susan
From Gail Sheehy's 1995 New Passages. Mapping Your Life
Across Time,
Western culture from antiquity to the present has sought to
divide human life into ages and stages. The need to find some
order and predictability in the variousness of the human life cycle
has inspired philosophers, poets, and playwrights from the Greeks
and Hindus up through Shakespeare and on through the
psychoanalysts Jung and Erikson to today's New Age bards.
From the beginning of this century to the middle of the
1970s the marker events of life graduation, first job, marriage,
first child, empty nest, retirement, widowhood, even
death always tended to occur for most people at predictable
point in life The ages 21 and 60 or 65 came to define the lower
and upper boundaries of participation in the adult world.
But age norms have shifted and are no longer normative.
- Consider:
9-year-old girls are developing breasts and pubic hair.
9-year-old boys carry guns to school.
16-year-olds can "divorce" a parent.
30-year-old men still live at home with Mom.
40-year-old women are just getting around to pregnancy.
50-year-old men are forced into early retirement.
55-year-old women can have egg donor babies.
65-year-old women start first professional degrees.
70-year-old men reverse aging by 20 years (with human growth
hormone).
80-year-olds move in together, enjoy sex, and scandalize their
middle-aged children.
90-year-olds have hip replacements.
And every day the Today show's Willard Scott was saying
"Happy Birthday" to more 100-year-olds.
John
Sheehy goes on to say,
There is a revolution in the life cycle. In the space of one short
generation the whole shape of the life cycle has been
fundamentally altered. People today are leaving childhood
sooner, but they are taking longer to grow up and much longer
to grow old. That shifts all the stages of adulthood ahead by
up to ten years.
Puberty arrives earlier by several years than it did at the turn
of the century. Adolescence is now prolonged for the middle
class until the end of the twenties and for blue-collar men and
women until the mid-twenties, as more young adults live at
home longer. True adulthood
doesn't begin until 30. Most Baby Boomers, born after World War
II, do not feel fully "grown up" until they are into their forties,
and even then they resist. Unlike members of the previous
generation, who almost universally had they children launched
by that stage of life, many late-baby couples or stepfamily
parents will still be battling with rebellious children who are
on the "catastrophic brink of adolescence while they themselves
wrestle with the pronounced hormonal and psychic changes
that come with the passage into middle life.
Sheehy cites the following statistics:
A woman who reaches age 50 today--and remains free of cancer
and heart disease can expect to see her ninety-second
birthday.
Already the average healthy man who is 65 today an age now
reached by the great majority of the US population can expect
to live until 81.
The life cycle will only get longer. Imagine the day you turn 45
as the infancy of another life a Second Adulthood in middle
life.
READINGS: SECOND ADULTHOOD: PART II
Susan
"Finding Her Here" by Jayne Relaford Brown
I am becoming the woman I've wanted,
gray at the temples,
soft body, delighted,
cracked up by life
with a laugh that's known bitter
but, past it, got better,
knows she's a survivor
that whatever comes,
she can outlast it.
I am becoming a deep
weathered basket.
I am becoming the woman I've longed for,
the motherly lover
with arms strong and tender,
the growing up daughter
who blushes surprises.
I am becoming full moons
and sunrises.
I find her becoming,
this woman I've wanted,
who knows she'll encompass,
who knows she's sufficient,
knows where she's going
and travels with passion.
Who remembers she's precious,
but knows she's not scarce
who knows she is plenty,
plenty to share.
John
Reverend Tom Owen-Towle, a UU minister in San Diego,
tells us about one of the tasks of Second Adulthood in New Men
Deeper Hungers,
I have come to believe that our male malaise is a spiritual
one at root. We have our physical agonies and emotional
immaturities, but, deep down, our fundamental struggle is
spiritual. We hanker to find more meaning, profounder
fulfillment, a durable, lasting peace within and without our
lives
The religious imperative for me is to balance the inner and
the outer life, to blend images of knight and hermit. Men like
Buddha and Jesus were contemplatives and prophets. They didn't
employ spiritual exercise as a moral cop-out. The Tao says that "a
sound person's heart dare not be shut up within itself"
The great [spiritual leaders] believe that their spirituality is
never complete until someone else feels more loved by them. The
spiritual life enables us to contribute breadth and meaning to the
universe that created us. (74-78)
Towle goes on to speak about the role of death in the lives of
men.
We are all vulnerable before the mysteries of death and
dying We men resist the possibility of our own death so fiercely
that we are often unable to live. We spend the bulk of our time
avoiding our demise so we have little energy and focus left for
embracing existence
Henry David Thoreau wrote, "I wish to learn what life has to
teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived."
Some men, due to fear and bitterness, live dying. Others, due to
joy and thankfulness, die living.
My father died living. That's the challenge of my second half
of existence. (123-5)
MEANING AT MID-LIFE
Charlene Belsom Zellmer
What a joy to be here at Cedar Lane again! I've been
attending this church, my first UU congregation, since 1971, even
before Ken MacLean arrived! But, the past 2-1/2 years, I've been
immersed in my internship for UU ministry so I have been able to
come only rarely. The pleasure of being in your company is
immense. It's good to be home again.
During the past five years of my seminary work I've been
involved in an intense identity crisis an effort to be able to
discover more fully who I am, what my choices are, where I want
to be in life, and figuring out how all that relates to the world I
live in and to the people I love. Coincidentally, these past five
years have been the last of my fifth decade of life, culminating in
my 50th birthday last Tuesday. It's no accident that I bring the
topic of meaning in mid-life for your consideration today. It is a
pre-eminent one in my mind. And, I suspect, it is meaningful to
some or all of you. 60% of our population is aged 35-65 today. So
mid-life meaning is probably of some interest to you and/or to
those whom you love such as your children or grandchildren.
We all enter into and process through adulthood in similar
ways. As author, researcher, and former student of Margaret
Meade, Gail Sheehy has devoted most of her life to studying adult
developmental stages. In her 1995 book called New Passages.
Mapping Your Life Across Time, Sheehy updates her 1974 classic
called Passages.
These books represent thousands of hours of interview work
with hundreds of people. Sheehy delved deeply into the lives of
the people she chose to interview. The outcomes paint a picture of
the face of mostly Americans and how they conduct their adult
lives. Her conclusions in Passages were many. Yet, in the follow-
up work she did twenty years later, she detected a decade shift in
adult life cycles. For example, mid-life has been pushed into the
fifties and adulthood isn't fully achieved until 40.
Human beings in the middle class live longer and higher
quality lives. This creates a new middle of adult life today, a
middle that creates a vast expanse of Second Adulthood and a
minimal time for being "old," generally just very shortly before
death. With life expectancy continuing to increase, it seems
appropriate to consider adult life in new ways. Sheehy has given
three titles to adult life: Provisional Adulthood from 18-30, First
Adulthood from 30-45, and Second Adulthood form 45 to 85.
Sheehy's focus on Second Adulthood is intriguing to me.
She calls the period from 45 to 65 the Age of Mastery and
from 65 to 85 the Age of Integrity. The tasks in which adults are
engaged in this Second Adulthood are rich and revitalizing,
almost a new birth. And, like new birth, they are not without
struggle. They demand major reassessment of the whole of life
which preceded age 45.
Think about your own life for a moment. Where are you in
relation to Sheehy's Second Adulthood? Are you on the First
Adulthood side, ages 30-45? Are you in the Age of Mastery from
45 to 65 or the Age of Integrity form 65 to 85? Remember when
you were in a prior stage? How was that different for you? What
are you looking forward to in the next stage? What decisions have
you made that have changed your life in the next stage? What will
you do with this leftover life, these extra years of longevity?
Vaclev Havel, the philosopher and former president of the
Czech Republic has commented on the paradox of our times:
"Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we
understand our own lives less and less. We live in the postmodern
world, where anything is possible and almost nothing is certain."
Awareness and acknowledgment of a higher authority have been
shunted into the realm of magic and mysticism . The concept of a
Creator or an Earth Mother who anchors us in the universe, not
for ourselves alone but as an integral part of some higher, self-
perpetuating universal order, represents an affront to science and
technology and gets in the way of arrogant human aspirations.
Yet, there must be a reason that we are living so much longer.
What are we meant to do with all this leftover life? "The only
real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty
that we are rooted in the Earth and, at the same time, the
cosmos," suggests President Havel. "this awareness endows us
with the capacity for self-transcendence."
Sheehy agrees with Havel that the real work of Second
Adulthood is the feeding and crafting of the soul. With the wisdom
of years, we have the greater capacity to love and be loved, in
ways far deeper and less selfish than when we were younger.
(172)
Deeper personal identity can lead to deeper relational gains
with family, friends, and colleagues. The roughly 10-year passage
into the Age of Mastery provides time for the task of retiring First
Adulthood and moving into the infancy of Second Adulthood. Like
all rebirths this passage requires a "little death" of something else
in order to rest, consolidate, nourish, and prepare for the very
long growing seasons ahead in later life. the hope is that this
transitional period will allow the true self to emerge and flourish.
How to find and cultivate the true self? This question has
occupied my thinking in my own passage to Second Adulthood.
Perhaps you've asked the same question: how do I find and
cultivate my true self?
Going back to school, entering therapy or support groups,
developing new spiritual practices such as meditation or chanting,
renewing old acquaintances, exploring volunteer work all are
possibilities for exploring the true self. In looking back on it, my
entering seminary at 45 was no accident. It was the culmination
of several years of exploratory work and hard decision making
which marked my own passage into Second Adulthood, a passage
which continues today. Developing a new fully adult identity
requires time. The acceptance of the newer longevity has allowed
me to embrace the fact that I have time to accomplish these new
goals. With decades of life ahead for us Boomers, we can breathe
more fully in the future, having panted our way through the 30's
and 40's to get to this point. It takes time to grow a soul and the
wisdom of years to understand that soul.
Finding meaning in mid-life can be the solitary identity
crisis I've just outlined. But, meaning-making is also a corporate
act, the endeavor of a people together who value their
relationships and see in them some spark of the divine. We
Unitarian Universalists are guided by our Principles in this
corporate quest for meaning. We are supported by others in this
Beloved Community as we enter more deeply into the many ways
of doing church together.
Growing a wise and discerning soul can occur in the
collective settings of adult religious education classes such a Tai
Chi or theology building. Corporate worship provides a visible
affirmation of our place in this community with the communion of
the refreshment period afterward emphasizing the shared quest
for truth and meaning.
Sheehy's research into the adult life cycle and Havel's
insights into personal transcendence are not major revelations.
They have affirmed for me, though, the observations I've made
about my own life's passages. Things have changed by at least a
decade. We live longer. We continue to self-identify and to join
groups that help us to grow. A major task in the wisdom years of
adulthood is to grow a soul.
Life's seasons are akin to the seasons in nature. Moving into
the various life stages feels like new birth. The Rev. Richard
Gilbert, UU minister in Rochester NY, captures this cycling in his
poem, "The Inescapable Process."
We live within an inescapable process.
It climbs upward in the surging sap;
It breathes in the caressing breeze;
It bursts in bold, courageous forsythia.
The trees seem to sense when it is time;
The flowers have a canny sense of reviving life;
The gray skies give way to blue.
Bright hues streak the leaden heavens.
Even in us there is a sense of renewal.
The calendar does not much inspire;
It is the softness of the air;
It is the sun making its inexorable ascent;
The geese call us from our routines;
The earth prepares us for fresh beginnings.
There is in us a hint of new energy.
There is no way to avoid it, even if we would.
Nature's ritual and human rite blend as one.
One more season of promise is given us,
As a gift of grace,
Beyond our comprehension,
Beyond our deserving.
We live within an inescapable process.
It is a bondage of joy!
Shalom, Amen, Blessed Be!
