Journal of Sacred Work

   Recently, a woman in her twenties was part of a team making a presentation to our Healing Trust
for a grant. She mentioned that her charity was holding a 5k race as a fundraiser. "I’d love to enter," I said, "but you’d have to add a category for people over ninety." Instead of laughing, as I thought she would, she gave me a confused look and said, "Well, I supposed we could do that…wait, so you’re ninety?"
   Ouch! What does ninety look like? Imogen Cunningham photograhed her father at that age (left). But putting aside my ego damage, the truth is that to people in their twenties, most people over forty or fifty seem generically "old." So I thought of another way to think about age. The new question I have for you today is: What is your energy age? Not what the calendar says, but how you feel? And here’s an even bigger question, how are you using the energy you have?…

   The answer to the first question may depend on whether you’re sitting still or moving around. Or your answer may rely on the time of day you ask yourself. You may feel twenty at 9 a.m. and ninety by 10 p.m.
   Who cares about age anyway, especially caregivers? Movie stars might worry about it as an element of their career success.
But if you work in a hospital, hospice, or nursing care facility, you
may have already gained the wisdom that we are lucky to be alive
and at least healthy enough to read this Journal.
   Most ‘well’ adults think of themselves as younger than the calendar says. This may be partly because anyone over forty comes face to face with the image they held of forty-year olds when they were twenty. It’s surprising how well most people feel in their older years.
   So instead of letting ourselves be controlled by the calendar, what if we
thought of ourselves by our energy age instead of our chronological
age? This kind of thinking will become more relevant with each passing year.
   I would say that most of the time (especially when I don’t look
in the mirror or stand up too quickly after doing push-ups) I feel
about thirty. How about you?
   If we can shake the trap of the calendar, look at the spiritual mirror instead of physical one, we may find good news. The soul doesn’t necessarily age, does it? We may, however, grow more open to our soul’s wisdom and less dependent on the news about our bodies.
   The real question of life is not how long we live. How are we using our life’s energy while we have
it? Mozart and Martin Luther King both died in their thirties, yet the music of one and the message of the other are as alive today as they were when these men left their bodies. Jesus was crucified while in his early thirties. For Christians, he is as alive to them today as he was two thousand years ago.
   Spending too much of our time trying to look younger than we are may steal away time and resources we could have spent engaged in meaningful service to others. Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi paid no attention to their appearance and live in our hearts as ageless. Albert Einstein and Albert Schwietzer lived a long time. However, their contributions were not dependent on the length of their lives, but on the way they used their energy and potential when they had it.
   This is true of all the best caregivers. They may not be famous, but their beautiful and anonymous contributions have made the difference in the quality of life of everyone they touched.
   Our souls are the part of us that came from eternity and are still in touch with it. Eternity, by definition, has no age. So the truth is that the more we let Love’s energy move through us, the more we are in touch with ageless light.
   The idea of Energy Age may seem less concrete than the calendar, especially if we are heavily dependent on the information our senses bring. But as parts of us begin to wear out, as our eyesight dims and our hearing weakens, we may take joy in two things: 1) our energy is stronger than the calendar, 2) our souls are ageless.
   Wherever you are in your life’s journey, celebrate, today, the life you have right now. You’re older now than you were ten minutes ago, and you’re younger than you will be ten minutes from now. But our now is all we have.

-Erie Chapman