Freedom in Life's Second Half

In this volatile, argumentative, conflicted, polarized moral and political climate, how do we find peace? How do we love? Info in this episode!
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In today's daily email meditation, Richard Rohr describes how people in the second half of life have an inner freedom that simultaneously holds joy and suffering.

There is a gravitas in the second half of life, but it is held up by a much deeper lightness or ‘‘okayness.’’ Our mature years are characterized by a kind of bright sadness and a sober happiness, if that makes any sense. I am just grabbing for words to describe many wonderful older people I have met. There is still suffering in the second half of life—in fact maybe even more. But there is now a changed capacity to hold it creatively and with less anxiety.

It is what John of the Cross called ‘‘luminous darkness,’’ and it explains the simultaneous existence of deep suffering and intense joy in the saints and mystics—something that is almost impossible for most of us to imagine. Eastern Orthodoxy believed that if something was authentic religious art, it would always have a bright sadness to it. I think I am saying the same of an authentic life.

In the second half of life, one has less and less need or interest in eliminating the negative or fearful, making again those old rash judgments, holding on to old hurts, or feeling any need to punish other people. Our superiority complexes have gradually departed in all directions. We learn to positively ignore and withdraw our energy from evil or stupid things rather than fight them directly. We fight things only when we are directly called and equipped to do so. We all become a well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while, and we lose our inner freedom.

Daily life now requires prayer and discernment more than knee-jerk responses toward either end of the political and cultural spectrum. We have a spectrum of responses now, and they are not all predictable. Law is still necessary, of course, but it is not our guiding star, or even close. It has been wrong and cruel too many times. The Eight Beatitudes speak to us much more than the Ten Commandments.

When we are young, we define ourselves by differentiating ourselves from others; now we look for the things we all share in common. We find happiness in alikeness, which has become much more obvious to us now; and we do not need to dwell on the differences between people or exaggerate the problems. Creating dramas has become boring.

In the second half of life, it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor. Life is more participatory than assertive, and there is no need for strong or further self-definition.
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I see these changes beginning to happen in myself. I can look back over the last four or five years and realize now they were starting to happen at that time, but at the time it felt negative—like confusion. Now it’s getting to where it feels positive—like clarity.

What stood out the most for me in the piece above was this:

“We learn to positively ignore and withdraw our energy from evil or stupid things rather than fight them directly. We fight things only when we are directly called and equipped to do so. We all become a well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while, and we lose our inner freedom.”I feel that. I feel that in my stridency, my anger and frustration with religion, rules, and politics, I was part of the problem—just one more person putting negative energy into the world. 

With increasing frequency, I’ll type out something on social media, spend 20 minutes thinking it through, crafting it, fashioning it to make my point sharply and skillfully, only to read it all through once I’m finished, think about whether it’s really going to move the needle or accomplish any real good in the world, and then simply delete it. I call it pressing the “nope” key. 

I’m realizing these are barriers to love. I think there’s an active piece to love, where we are praying or putting positive energy into the world, and then a passive piece to it where we are just learning to remove the barriers that keep love from flowing. My stridency, my love for my own opinions and ideas, I gotta let a lot of that go. My sense that what I really need to do is make another argument that can correct or fix somebody or change somebody’s mind. That’s gotta go. 

I say on my podcast, that I have put together for the whole world to hear. 😂

But I think that’s why I had to struggle so long and hard with even doing this podcast. It had to transform in my mind from just having opinions and making arguments to really being able to embrace and point to love. I think beginning to break through that stuff is what is referred to in the Christian tradition as “dying to self.”

I know Fr. Rohr makes the point that you really can’t die to yourself until you have spent a few decades creating a self that ultimately has to be died to. You first have to have a calling, a career, a list of accomplishments, degrees, and certifications, a net worth, an ego identity, something you have spent years building and fashioning for yourself. You have to have that, before you can reach a point where you realize that it’s nice to have, but it can’t get you there. It can’t free you. It can’t be all there is. And so you go into the second half of life and begin separating your sense of yourself from all that ego stuff, all that stuff you spent the first half of life accumulating. And this is where you start to break free. In your 20s and 30s you thought you were going to change the world. By the time you get into your 40s and 50s, you realize what a towering challenge it is to simply change yourself, and hopefully you start to take that challenge more seriously

And you do it by surrendering. Realizing all that stuff that you think makes you who you are really isn’t *all that.* And this is the door into love, when you don’t have to make that next argument, or win, or get a shot in at the other side, or keep proving to the world that you deserve to be here.

So I just wanted to share this with you today not because I’m there yet, but because I can feel it growing up in me, this desire to let go, to be at peace in the world and with all people, to be a channel for love and peace and goodness, what Christians call “the fruit of the Spirit,” to flow out into the world.

This is reflected in what this podcast is about, because I’m not trying to change anybody’s mind. Love is a calling and you won’t be able to do it until you feel called to it, regardless of what you say you believe or what your religious background is.  I’m just trying to gather together people who know they are called to go deeper in love. 

Because that is my church, and those are my people. See you next time.