{"id":93,"date":"2024-04-24T17:40:08","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T17:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/?p=93"},"modified":"2026-01-26T14:33:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T14:33:20","slug":"on-the-brink-of-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/2024\/04\/24\/on-the-brink-of-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Brink of Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

*Grace, Gravity and Getting Old*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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How do you decide when you have something, or something more, to say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After publishing his 9th book at age 72, Parker Palmer thought he was done. Then, years later, his editor asked if he was working on anything new. He said ‘no’ but the editor wasn’t convinced. For Parker had been writing some brief essays and a bit of poetry. She asked him is he realized what all of that was about and he replied that he just writes his stuff not reads it. So she informed him that pretty much all of it was about “getting old.” The end result was this new book published at the age of 79.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like Palmer’s 3 G’s in the sub-title. We spend a lifetime trying to figure out what Grace<\/em> is and where to find it. Gravity<\/em> finds us as body parts begin to sink towards the ground and feet must try harder to move forward. And Getting Old<\/em> just happens. Yet Palmer, on the cusp of 80, still affirms that we are “On the BRINK of EVERYTHING.” He insists that we must “reframe aging as a passage of discovery and engagement, not decline and inaction.” And then he proceeds to offer his experience and encouragement through a collection of 24 brief essays and a variety of poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 76, I still don’t think in terms of ‘getting old’ – although the reality of gravity and the need for grace are certainly alive and well. As a slow learner, I just retired from ‘carrying my lunch pail’ a year ago. I didn’t have a master plan. I just kept showing up for work. And, even after I went from employee status to one-year contracts (at my request) at age 65, no one ever came to me and said, “Your services are no longer required.” So, after 10 more years, I decided it was time to join other retirees in having all day to fight gravity, seek grace, and talk about getting old. Here I am, just finishing the first year and it is like I am starting to live all over again. Having to figure out a whole new agenda. On the brink of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t hear me wrong. I miss my work community of colleagues. And the last 5 years, where I had no administrative responsibilities, were the most satisfying of my 40 years in college and seminary work. I could focus entirely on my teaching areas and relationship to my students. But now, that’s gone. And its departure has made room for all that lies over ‘the brink’ of upcoming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kinds of things does Palmer want to keep in mind as he moves into his 80s and beyond? And is any of this relevant for you at this point in time? If you are 50, that is a whole generation younger. If you are 20, that is two generations. I find it difficult to conceive how I can be 60 years older than my oldest granddaughter and 70 years older than my twin granddaughters. No wonder I am so unsure about how to be effective in relating to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re still reading, I guess you want to hear a bit more about what Palmer sees over ‘the brink’ of his coming years. He focuses on several themes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young and Old: The Dance of the Generations<\/strong> – to seek creative engagement with the young. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmer says, “When young and old connect, it’s like joining the poles of a battery. Together, we generate energy for personal and social change that an age-segregated society cuts off.” Mentoring becomes a two-way street flowing both ways between young and older. Parker calls it music and a dance. If we can “knock down the walls that keep us apart and meet in that in-between space,” the end result will be that all of us are smarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting Real: From Illusion to Reality<\/strong> – to gain more insight into ‘the mystery’ of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmer says, “The spiritual journey is an endless process of engaging life as it is, stripping away all our illusions. . . and moving closer to reality as we do.” He implies that true spirituality is not the illusion of floating above the realities of life (i.e., being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good) but rather being immersed in real living. Being engaged. The vehicle for this process may be different for each person and may evolve through one’s life. Palmer himself grew up in the Methodist Church, migrated to the philosophy of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, and landed in his zone of comfort as a Quaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work and Vocation: Writing a Life <\/strong>– to clarify the difference between the jobs by which we make a living and the callings, or sense of vocation, that give meaning and purpose to all that we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here Palmer asks us to tune in to what has given, and hopefully still gives, us joy and internal satisfaction. It may have been connected to our work life but could also be outside of it. This is the unction that we can take with us over the brink when the job is left behind. The creative force that will continue to make meaning during the next phase of life. For Palmer, that passion was writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep Reaching Out: Staying Engaged with the World<\/strong> – to maintain a live connection to the world around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmer’s words say it best – “When I’m with elders whose world has shrunk to the dimensions of their TV room, and have no health problems to limit their mobility, it’s as if I’m with the walking dead. But when I’m with elders who have a mind-and-heart connection with the world beyond their walls, I find their vitality contagious, even if they are confined to their homes.” As an indication of his old-age bravado, Palmer takes off the gloves and shares his political convictions. But I’ll leave that part to your own reading of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep Reaching In: Staying Engaged with Your Soul<\/strong> – to ‘know thyself,’ to embrace Socrates’ declaration that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmer affirms the necessity of growing our personal inner life irrespective of, and even unrelated to, any religious tradition. He says it is a “silent, solitary process of reflection. . . where we put our lives in perspective, embrace our shadow and our light, transcend the regrets and fears that often come with age, and reconcile ourselves to what the poet Stanley Kunitz calls the heart’s ‘feast of losses’.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know how I would respond to this book if I was 45. Probably would let a lot of the content slip by me and encourage it to move on to someone else. Someone like myself now reading it for the second time at age 75. It is more pressing now than ever that I take seriously Palmer’s injunction, “Knowing yourself and sinking your roots into the ground of your being are critical in old age.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He declares that I must embrace the whole of who I am, all the affirming and incriminating qualities. For Palmer that includes the conflicting qualities of “self-serving and generous, spiteful and compassionate, cowardly and courageous, treacherous and trustworthy.” He sees himself and, by extension, me, as a masterpiece of conflicting tendencies housed in a being that is nearer the end of life’s trajectory than its beginning. And he encourages me to face all of it with honesty and humility. Doing so, I have a chance to truly be “on the brink of everything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*Grace, Gravity and Getting Old* How do you decide when you have something, or something more, to say? After publishing his 9th book at age 72, Parker Palmer thought he was done. Then, years later, his editor asked if he was working on anything new. He said ‘no’ but the editor wasn’t convinced. For Parker…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-my-bookshelf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}