The Second-Half Marker

We can characterize our generation all kinds of ways, but one thing that certainly works at this stage is to say, we’re in the second half of life. All but the youngest of us, anyway. But that scares some people, although according to Meredith Jordan, it shouldn’t. It should just be a cue to Be Our Best.

Recently, I was lucky enough to attend a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, which featured Angeles Arrien, a cross-cultural anthropologist who spoke eloquently, humorously, knowledgably, and sensitively about what we who have entered it — translation: Boomers — euphemistically call “The Second Half of Life.” One friend who was there with me tagged this “Second ½.”

But it doesn’t matter what we call it: it’s more than a little gripping to those of us who have reached the top of the mountain and have begun the descent to the other side. The clock, in other words, is ticking, and we had better be involved in life’s true work, which is cultivating the inner life, formulating the wisdom we have accrued through our life experiences, and leaving that wisdom in some form as a living legacy for those who follow the path we mark with our efforts.

The baby boomers of whom I am among the first wave stand on the threshold of becoming the next elders of our culture. Are we prepared to inherit such a role, and the responsibilities that go with it? Where do we find our models, those who have preceded us through the wilderness of conscious aging, and left a compass to guide us wisely?

One of the things Angeles Arrien said in kicking off this event, as she screwed her expressive rubber face into a scowl at her audience in the pretense of scrutiny, was this: “If we have reached the age of fifty and are not yet modeling wisdom for the generations behind us, we are behaving in a less than becoming manner!” As an opener, it certainly got our attention; the audience howled with laughter and simultaneously groaned with distress as we recognized ourselves in that truth.

We spent the next three days exploring what it means to become keepers of wisdom in the second half of life. All of us went through our personal rigors as we dove into the hidden corners of our own souls to see where we have left our “business” neglected or untended. Though she did not say this, Angeles would agree that every gardener knows when it is time to cut the garden back and put it to bed for the winter, when it is time for the garden to be quiet and prepare for the burst of life ahead in the spring. That is the inner work of the second half of life: preparing the garden within the soul for the final splendor of its life work.

Most of us are not paying attention though. We are too busy with … what? Those things we call the activities of daily living?? Paying the bills, reaching the top of the success ladder (the mythologist Joseph Campbell always said, “There can be nothing worse than climbing the ladder of success only to discover you placed it against the wrong house!”), planning for retirement or the time when we can finally “slow down.”

And in the process, who or what do we fail to notice, experience, appreciate, and value?

We are quickly moving toward the season of the year and the season of our lives when we are called to stand still, to notice the beauty of life, to rain extravagant love on those who daily and faithfully love us. This understanding or approach to the right use of our singular lives is an elemental characteristic of one who is in the process of becoming incrementally wise. Life teaches us this.

Are we pushing away the beauty of life in our failure to see the grasshopper that crosses our path, the moose that lumbers into our neighborhood, the sparkle of Venus sitting on the slender hip of the moon? My brother wrote me the other day that he happened to be in the right place at the right time to get a glimpse of a last migrating monarch butterfly, backlit by the sun, radiant in its passing. “Will I ever see such a sight again?” he wondered, sharing his awe. Lucky that he saw it this one time, this precious moment noticing beauty on its way through his life.

And what about the love we push away, and for what reasons? Lauren, the little girl who lives next door to me, appears at the most unexpected (and occasionally inconvenient) times for what we call “a visit.” I’m often in the middle of writing or finishing some task only adults find important and consider just for a moment that I won’t answer when she pounds at my door and calls my name. This is love calling and in my foolishness, I consider not answering the call. Fortunately, my soul is wiser than my mind, and I put away whatever task I’m doing to spend time with a child who loves to love me.

How many times do we push away the ones who love to love us? This is the work of the second half of life: this reckoning with ourselves and the unpleasant truths we might find lurking in the recesses of our spirits. If we have reached the age of fifty, are creeping up on it, or have passed it without awareness, we will inevitably hear the siren call of the wild spirit to come to attention.

So we want to be wise, eh? We want to be respected in our years as elders? Then we better get going, friends, to embrace the beauty and finitude of life and of those who love us. Push none of them away. Take them, instead, into our hearts, and be glad for them. They are our true wealth, our only blessings worth counting.

May our days be filled with the gracious and humble appreciation of everything and everyone that truly matters and makes our beautiful life worth the journey.