My journey through the first half of life

Last Sunday’s fathers’ day celebration led me to thinking once more about my own journey through the second half of life. What is the second half of life and how is it a journey?

I first learned about the concept of the second half of life from OMI spiritual writer Fr. Ronald Rolheiser. He discusses it extensively in a video that he produced for discussion groups, “Spirituality for the two halves of life” (Available at www.amazon.com). I shall refer, however, from a 2003 article in his website www.ronrolheiser.com.

Rolheiser speaks of our lives as having two halves. According to him the second half of life, just like the first, is a journey. But unlike the first where the journey was outward towards a search for identity, the acquisition of material wealth, a definition of one’s role in life, and raising a family; the second half is more of a journey inward. It is a journey to wholeness, a deeper engagement with those aspects of life that we have tended to neglect in our earlier years. It is about completing unfinished business and preparing to bring our earthly existence to fruition. It is essentially the journey home towards the Father.

In order to do this journey home, however, Rolheiser says that “we have first to shed many of the things that we legitimately acquired and attached ourselves to during the first-half of life”. The act he speaks of is one of relinquishment, of detachment, of letting go.

And the first one, he says, is letting go of and detaching ourselves from our wounds and anger. We all get wounded in the first half of life and consciously or unconsciously, harbor a lot of ill feelings and anger deep within our souls. “The foremost spiritual task of the second half of life is to forgive - others, ourselves, life, God. We all arrive at mid-life wounded and not having had exactly the life of which we dreamed. There's a disappointment and anger inside everyone of us and unless we find it in ourselves to forgive, we will die bitter, unready for the heavenly banquet.”

I have had my fair share of wounds that have cut deeply into my psyche and have rendered me broken to the point of being immobile, unable to be my own self for many years. But thanks to God’s grace, I found it in my self to forgive. Now I am whole once more. And like the Bread that was broken, I have given myself to many who I hope have found their life’s meaning in my giving.

“Second, we need to detach ourselves from the need to possess, to achieve, and to be the centre of attention. The task of the second-half of life is to become the quiet, blessing grandparent who no longer needs to be the centre of attention but is happy simply watching the young grow and enjoy themselves.”

I can relate to this a lot. Lately I noticed that I have learned to reduce my wants and to distinguish them from my needs. Ah, yes, I have truly “become the quiet, blessing grandparent” to Nicole as I watched her development even from afar, enjoying her every move as she dances to her heart’s content or shows her newly found skills.

“Third, we need to learn how to say good-bye to the earth and our loved ones so that, just as in the strength of our youth we once gave our lives for those we love, we can now give our deaths to them too, as a final gift.”

I have long been resigned to my death. I have survived what could have been a massive heart attack in 2007. I have always said that at 67 I have outlived my father and father-in-law who had both died at the early age of 61. And yes, I have made a “living will” instructing my immediate family not to do anything “extra-ordinary” in case I fall into an irreversible coma.

“Fourth, we need to let go of sophistication so as to become simple ‘holy old fools’ whose only message is that God loves us.”

I say “Amen” to that.

“Finally, we need, more and more, to immerse ourselves in the language of silence, the language of heaven. Meister Eckhard once said: "Nothing so much resembles God as silence." The task of mid-life is to begin to understand that and enter into that language.”

Everyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I have long taken to silence. My predisposition to silence must have taken root while I was in the seminary years ago. I have long learned that you can find God and He can speak to you only in silence.

Father Rolheiser concludes that this journey can be a painful one such that he likens it to the catholic doctrine of purgatory which “tells us that God's eternal embrace can only become fully ecstatic once we've learned to let go”. Cito Beltran in his Philippine Star (June 14, 2009 issue) column recently also said the same thing about what his father-in-law is experiencing at present. But he called it “some kind of purgatory” only because his father-in-law is in an institution for old people.

I will not call mine a “purgatory”, however. It is more of a pleasant journey around my loved ones into the unknown yet certain place because it is a coming home to the embrace of our only true and loving Father.