Reviewed by Barbara Jenks
March 2010
Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun who, because of her great wisdom and her lifelong development of a contemporary spirituality, is known internationally for her prophetic lectures, books, and journal articles. One of her more recent books is The Gift of Years—Growing Old Gracefully. There aren't many books that I begin to read again as soon as I've turned the last page. Reading any book by Joan Chittister is like meeting a soul friend.
Joan Chittister has written this book for those of us who are “facing the time of life for which there is no career plan.” The book is one which looks at the latter stage of life as a gift. She describes a life that has purpose and that purpose is in discovering the gifts, not the burdens, of growing older. It is a time of reflection and discovery. One line that leapt out at me was, “What am I when I am not what I used to do?”-- a question for everyone the day after one retires.
The book leads one to reflect on the past to assimilate and derive meaning from what has gone before, and to find ways of using that awareness to enrich the later years.
In a world that glorifies youth and presents aging only as loss, Joan Chittister lifts it up as precious and golden. Now that the earlier years of making one's mark and setting career goals are over, we are free to be who we really are as we live the last part of our life mindfully with gratitude, generosity of spirit, and joy. The book is filled with gems. Sharing reflections on her own life and those whose lives she has encountered, and while often quoting from wisdom writers of other faiths, Joan Chittister shares with us the riches possible in our own discovery of a spirituality of aging.
Each three or four page chapter in The Gift of Years is best read as a meditation for each day. So, even thought her writing captures you immediately and you want to read on, the richer experience, I think, is in daily meditation on a single chapter. Each chapter ends with “the burden of these years is... the blessing of these years is...” The following is an example.
A burden of these years is the danger of considering ourselves useless simply because we are no longer fulfilling the roles and positions of youth.
A blessing of these years is the freedom to reach out to others, to do everything we can with everything in life that we have managed to develop all these years in both soul and mind for the sake of the rest of the human race.
Enjoy!