7 WAYS TO
GROW  OLD GRACEFULLY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 9^th Tuesday in Ordinary Time  is, “7 Ways to Grow Old Gracefully." Sub-title: “Becoming more and more graceful as we get older is tricky business!”

There’s a phrase in today’s first reading from Second Peter 3: 18 that intrigued me. The letter says, “But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.” I want to concentrate on part one of that hope: growing in grace and then conclude by asking Jesus in prayer for help with this. This issue triggers good stuff for prayer.

“Lord, teach me how to grow old gracefully.”

Isn’t that a prayer and a hope for everyone who hits 70 or is it 65 or 60?  Is there an actual date when we are declared “old!”

To me the how  would be the key thing to get a handle on. How does one grow old gracefully? Tell me some practical tricks to do just that?

So last night I came up with my first draft 7 tricks or 7 ways to grow old gracefully

7  WAYS TO GROW OLD GRACEFULLY

1) Be grateful:  Be thankful for every day of life that comes to us.

Years ago when I had a column in U.S. Catholic*, I wrote in one column about an old man I met down south. He was around 77 years of age. He would certainly be someone who was graceful and gracious.  He would be someone who had an impact on my life - from just one home visit. He told me that he saw that the secret of life was to keep his eyes closed when he woke up in the morning. Then he would wiggle his toes. If they wiggled, he knew he was alive. If he was alive, he would thank the Lord for one more day of life.

From him I learned to wiggle my toes and be grateful for every new day of life. I wiggle my toes during boring meetings - at Mass all the time - and any time I want to thank God for the gift of life. Try it! Are you wiggling?

2) Stop Complaining: Enough with the complaining about getting older. Don’t we all run into complainers - gripers - pessimists - people who keep on telling us about their arches and aches and arthritis?

They complain that they were given a false hope that the Golden Years were going to perfect. They are disappointed, so they keep looking for an audience to deliver their “bad news” that this is not true.  If you’re a complainer about the Golden Years being the Rust Years or what have you, and if you want to be gracious, turn off the complaining tape and enjoy being alive. Avoid the attitude of the author of Psalm 90 some of which we heard today in the Psalm Response part of the readings:

Seventy is the sum of our years,

or eighty, if we are strong,

And most of them are fruitless toil,

for they pass quickly and we drift away.

Don’t drift away! Buy maps. Get a good compass or GPS and buy good walking shoes or a boat. Then move it. Shake it. And laugh along the way.

3) Listen to people. Find a common interest. Better find out by spending time with them - who they are, where they’ve been, what their hopes were and now are. Discover the magic of interview. Discover the magic of what people have learned from their experiences. Enough of you; more of them. Listen. Listen. Listen.

4) Avoid the energy drainers! Avoid those who ruin cocktail parties, picnics, cookouts, coffee breaks, and dinners - those who have an agenda 24/7 about church, religion, politics, others. Enough already. There’s a time for this and there’s a time for that, but not all the time - especially now that election years take a year and a half at least. And if you're an energy drainer, go to a plastic surgeon and have your buttons removed and have balance buttons implanted into your mind.

5) Discover the magic of manners. Politeness works. Losing and winning in cards or Bingo - and being graceful either way is a skill. Say, "Congratulations" and “Please” and “Thank you” - and “Sorry!” Hold doors. Look people in the eye. Ask people for their unwritten autobiography - without being mechanical or obnoxious or seemingly all questions. This last skill is tricky.

6) Have projects. Have projects - plans - goals. Learn how to play the piano at home or the tuba in some kind of place other than your home. Don’t just sit around - like seals on the rocks at the Baltimore Aquarium. Write poetry or a novel or short stories or your autobiography. Redo your stamp collection - but with a grandkid this time. Study coins - Jesus did. Join a book club. Travel to Harper’s Ferry or Quite Water’s Park or the Smithsonian or volunteer, volunteer, volunteer.

7) Bring all this to prayer. No rock throwing at my 7 tricks. Come up with your own 7 secrets, ways, methods, tricks to grow old gracefully. Bring them to prayer. Talk to Jesus about your day. Compare your tricks with others and then learn the trick of  putting  them into practice.  

OOOOOO

* I put this article or column - "An Attitude of Gratitude" -  that I wrote for U.S. Catholic way back in November 1991, in my blog as a separate piece.