If we cannot deal directly with all the unfinished struggles of our lives, how can we possibly face the end of life with any kind of serenity?

The fact is that the unrest that accumulates over the years is the very great grace reserved for the last years, the pinnacle of life. Only now can the consciousness of these wrongs really make a difference in us. Only now can this pain be made productive.

Why? Because now we must deal with it all ourselves. There is no one here to forgive us anymore. There is no one to tell us we were right; no one to surrender to our insistence; no one left for us to refuse to consort with.

Now we must go down into the deepest part of ourselves to come to peace; not with our own old antagonist; but more importantly than that, with ourselves; with the conscience we have been refusing to reconcile with for years.

This is the period of life when we must begin to look inside our own hearts and souls rather than outside ourselves for the answers and solutions of our problems. This is the time to face ourselves; to bring ourselves into the light.

As the physical dimensions of life diminish, the spiritual dimension commonly increases

Can we come eye to eye with our own souls and admit who we are? If we have been selfish, can we bring ourselves now to the daily discipline of caring for others? If we have been dishonest about ourselves can we take care now to tell the real truth about ourselves? If we have been Godless are we able to trust now that the Creator of life must therefore also be the home of our souls? And can we bow before the life that has claim on our own?

Can we begin to see ourselves as only part of the universe? Just a fragment of it, not its centre? Can we let ourselves accept the heat and the rain? The pain and the limitations, the inconveniences and discomforts of life? Without setting out to passively punish the rest of the human race for the daily exigencies that come with being human?

Can we smile now at what we have not smiled at for years? Can we give ourselves away to those who need us now? Can we speak our truth without needing to be right? Can we accept the inconsistencies of life now without needing the entire rest of the world to swaddle us beyond any human justification to expect it? Can we talk to people decently and allow them to talk to us?

As the physical dimensions of life diminish, the spiritual dimension commonly increases. It is the most special period of life. Indeed, life is not about age. It is not about the number of years we manage to eke out of it. It is about aging well.

It is about living the gifts offered at every stage of life. But perhaps the most important dimension of ageing well is that we realise that there is a purpose to ageing. There is a reason for old age, whatever our state of life and our social resources. Those later years are a gift, not a burden. But not everyone who lives them either understands them or welcomes them.

Thus, our task is to realise that, in fact, the time of the end of life is one of its best. Certainly it is one of its most important. It is the time for melting into God; for putting down the ragged remnants of the past; for learning to live in the present and to live with life as it is; for learning to accept ourselves and all we have learned as a result of it and finding it sufficient.

The words that come now will be the honest and hopeful ones; the culmination of all the learning of all the other years. Then, the veil between us and eternity will begin to tear; and we will begin the slow walk through it.

Finally, we will be ready and open to being thrown upon the heart of God.