Here are two more videos by Paula Huston, discussing spiritual principles she explores in A Season of Mystery:
- Which points in these videos do you resonate with most, and why?
- What might you add to this discussion?
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Paula Huston on a Happier Second Half of Life (Part 2)
Previous post: Why Older Does Not Always Equal Holier
Next post: A Season of Holy Energy
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I think settling helps us get to understanding that God is pleased with us NOW, and who we are, being acceptable to Him, should be acceptable to us. That is not to say there is no longer room for improvement. Being who I am, I try to be the best me that I am. I still have a worst me tagging along, but God knows about that and continues to help me turn those worsts to bests. Keeping my love hidden is a worst. Bringing it out in the open, laying bare a feeling, that can be a best. I can accept that I am strong, but I need to use that strong-ness for the good of others, not just myself. That is being the best me I can be. Settling helps see the roots of the strength, and to revel in it and thank God for it, and then ask for the grace to use it on behalf of others, in service to others. Then I will be being the best me. Settling does not mean we don’t move forward. It means we are moving forward more confidently, because we understand ourselves better, and God helps us to move more deeply into relationship with Him. God reveals more of Himself to me when in my settling I focus on Him, while understanding how He has impacted my life in ways that have brought me to where I am now. He has chosen me with all my faults. I feel somewhat like King David, a man whose heart was with God, who did some awful things, but had the good sense to ask for forgiveness, and proceeded to be the best King he could be. So, settling moves me forward from good to better to best. Thanks for these posts. They have been, as usual, enlightening to me, and helpful in looking at myself on the inside, not with fear, but with hope.
A beautiful post, Helen–thank you! Peace–Vinita
I am in the midst of reading Ms. Huston’s book…I’ve read many “2nd half of life” books in the past year…some are scholarly, some urge us to “do” things…I like Ms. Huston’s accent on “being”…
I think I’m currently in what she calls “settling”…not easy in a culture that values money and fame and devalues those of us who are unemployed and older. Really, the very best people I know are simple (in the best sense of the word), kind, and GOOD.
I think settling is both appealing and challenging as a practice.
I find myself thinking about the Little House series of books, which I devoured repeatedly as a child. Unlike the tv series, the Ingalls family in the books was constantly on the move. Pa always wanted to move on, and Ma always wanted to settle down. I think that most of us embody that tension in our lives.
Second, many of us discover in midlife or beyond that we are not living the life for which we were aiming, and to settle — to revel in where we are now and live deeply into it — as opposed to “settling for” what’s left — is quite the mountaintop to climb — or depth to plunge, to try to remain metaphorically consistent. I am thinking now of two of my many friends widowed in their fifties. One has been able to retire and now volunteers in several capacities and spends a month on her own and then with her sisters in Florida, where she is developing new friendships and interests and embracing extra time with her family. The other has to keep working, but her life is marked more by her disinterest in doing anything without her husband than by her
financial realities. She does host social events and travel with her family, but reluctantly and sadly.
I would be the last person on earth to criticize anyone’s grieving or to ignore the reality that we all do it however we do it. I am merely noting that settling — savoring — as a practice is accompanied by intense challenges. And having spent part of the past two days with ladies who are 92, 70, 89, and 82, I can say only that they don’t become less intense!
Robin, thank you for making this distinction, which is a crucial one:
“Second, many of us discover in midlife or beyond that we are not living the life for which we were aiming, and to settle — to revel in where we are now and live deeply into it — as opposed to “settling for” what’s left — is quite the mountaintop to climb — or depth to plunge, to try to remain metaphorically consistent.”
I think many of us fear settling in the “savor” sense because we fear that we will–or that we have already–settled in the sense of missing the mark. At a certain point, and really at every point in life, there’s the question of “Can I be content?” And that doesn’t mean “Can I just resign myself to what life has given me?” It’s a posture we take toward existence. We receive the gifts that are here while not closing the door on gifts that may yet appear. And also we must grapple with the ideals we set up for ourselves. This is all hard work, and the advantage (for some) of getting older is that life slows down a bit and we have that extra space to do this interior work. The disadvantage is that by the second half of life, even if things have slowed down, we are also encumbered by health issues, family issues, and other matters that sap our energy. And of course, if there’s financial instability, we’re not allowed even to slow down.
I hope that DDF offers some company to people regardless of where they fall in all of this. Sometimes it helps just to hear someone else tell you that, no, you are not crazy or self-obsessed–things really are as tough and painful as they feel. We think that, given our age, we should be smarter and tougher and able to just sail through hardship. But hardship is hard, no matter how wise or tough we become.
Thanks so much for your post. You are keeping company with the rest of us. Peace–Vinita
I think it’s very difficult to “settle” because here in the US we have zero concept of “enough”…
Very true.
For someone as busy as you are, Robin, I think you are already living the life you are supposed to be . As soon as things get a tad too ritual/regular/run of the mill, it all changes so it’s important to roll with the punches and be ready for anything. As always I refuse to look at my age or the calendar, I just do what comes, on to the next good thing, and having said that I have to remind myself the good thing, Linda, not the other kind.
I never settle. Right now I am in a writing slump and bored with winter and its four major colour groups of white, black, grey, and brown. And becasue I don’t settle into that rut, I am antsy and awaiting the next good thing. Hurry Lord?? Just this once faster?
LOL on the color groups of winter. I’ll tell you one thing I have no plans to settle on or for or into, and that’s another northern winter without a break down south.
We painted our sunroom last summer and it turned out a much brighter yellow than I had anticipated. The rug is from Pottery Barn and is designed with birds in yellow and green and blue and the furniture is wicker. I am SO grateful this winter for what I now call our “Florida room.” I like to just look at it.
Yummy and you even said the magic word green. Sounds like a spring day sitting there.
I’m glad that Paula talks about courage here.
When my gm moving into assisted living in her mid-80s, as she began her terrible decline into almost complete blindness and deafness — and she lived to be nearly 101 — one of her best friends, who happened to be a (much younger) Catholic nun (to my knowledge, my gm was a Methodist Agnostic), said to me one day, “Your gm is a woman of such courage,”
I had no idea what she was talking about — I was a young mother with three lively children and umpteen soccer practices a week, and I could not see what might be courageous about sitting in the living room all day.
Now I get it. And I think it’s really important to support older people by recognizing and voicing the quiet courage that they exhibit in the course of ordinary lives of aging.
Amen. Amen.
Grandmas are the very best people.
Old age is no place for sissies…courage!!