Perspective
An excellent Vatican document for this Year of Older
Persons
By MICHAEL J. FARRELL
The United Nations has declared 1999
the International Year of Older Persons. The bad news is that no one seems to
have heard of it. It will be worse news if it does no more than throw a crumb
of recognition or gratitude to older people. There is, this pivotal year, both
a desperate need and a brilliant opportunity to get age right.
Were all standing so close to our own age, we cant see
it well. When young, we wish to be older; old, we wish we were young again. All
aspects, no doubt, of our hearts being restless and the grass greener on the
other side.
Dictionaries of quotations contain generations of seesaw
sentiments for and against the mixed blessings of age. Joseph Campbell waxed:
As a white candle/ in a holy place,/ so is the beauty/ of an aged
face. Seneca, on the other hand, lamented: Old age is an incurable
disease. In our day the majority seem to be siding with Seneca.
It wasnt always so. Traditional cultures revered the old.
There must have been a reason. If life is worth living at all, then its
accumulated years must have an accumulated value. This is a spiritual estimate
beyond appearances, beyond fashion, beyond monetary considerations. It denotes
more ethereal baggage such as wisdom, continuity, memory, the energy of prayers
heard or unheard, of hopes that soared or sank. The old were repositories of
tradition: not just primitive customs and antiquated lifestyles but some
secret, some finer, more transcendent expression of us at our best back
there as we came, presumably, from God.
These qualities, once upon a time, bore authority. Having survived
was a reason for having something to say and commanding attention and
respect.
Slowly and subtly the picture changed. Succeeding generations set
less store by the old imponderables. The Enlightenment, the industrial
revolution and similar down-to-earth movements pushed older people aside in the
hunt for quick and tangible results. It was essentially a descent into a
pervasive materialism. It has reached its nadir in our time when culture
strives so fiercely to cultivate youth in order to sell things to it.
Words are crude instruments to describe something as subtle as
age, yet so integral to each individual life. Paradoxes abound. The old have
more money, yet the adpersons go after youth. We all want to go to heaven, yet
no one wants to go yet. The ideal of beauty seems to point to the young rather
than the old. Is this a trend created by advertizers, and, if so, could they
make old age as desirable tomorrow as youth is today? In the art world, an
antique has added worth. This is an artificial creation of popular perception.
Surely it can be done with people.
The United Nations had a good idea, yet no one seems to be paying
attention. But another international body has stepped up: The Vaticans
Pontifical Council on the Laity has issued its own document, The Dignity
of Older People and Their Mission in the Church and in the World. Its
focus is on third age (65 to 75) and fourth age people
(75 and older) and its aim to create a society for all ages.
Making large leaps of progress in this direction ought to be dead
easy: Its not something the rest of us are doing for the old; were
doing it for ourselves who will soon be old.
The number of older people is constantly increasing, while
that of the young is constantly decreasing, the Vatican document notes.
Experts have seen this coming. They recognized that abstract demographics
involve real-life social, economic, psychological and spiritual problems. The
World Assembly on Aging, under the aegis of the United Nations, met in Vienna
in 1982 and its findings have become the international point of reference ever
since. An annual world day for older people has also emerged, celebrated Oct.
1.
It would be silly to downplay the downside of old age. The
stiffness and soreness and slowness, the loss of memory or eyesight are not
figments of the imagination, which also is not as vivid as it used to be. Yet
youth isnt all bliss, either. Young people are suffering their own
traumas, sometimes enough to cause them to kill or be killed by themselves or
others. There is enough pain for all ages.
But also enough hope, which is by definition limitless. These
moves by the United Nations and the church ought to be glimmers of hope for old
people, who sometimes are lucky enough to go gently and gracefully but all too
often are left lonely and in need.
The excellent Vatican document lists several charisms proper
to old age: disinterestedness, memory, experience, interdependence and a
more complete vision of life. These dont sound very promising, yet the
brief paragraph on disinterestedness shows how exalted our later years can
be:
The prevailing culture of our time measures the value of our
actions according to criteria of efficiency and material success, which ignore
the dimension of disinterestedness: of giving something or giving ourselves
without any thought of a return. Older people, who have time on their hands,
may recall the attention of an over-busy society to the need to break down the
barriers of an indifference that debases, discourages and stifles altruistic
impulses.
We should do ourselves a favor by reminding the world that this is
the Year of Older Persons. If that works, every year will become a year of
older persons.
Michael Farrell is editor of NCR.
National Catholic Reporter, May 28,
1999
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