SENIOR LIVING: Reaping the Harvest of a Lifetime: The Path of the Sage

By FRANK KENNEY Director, Grant County RSVP Volunteer Program

Western culture presents us with so few models of vigorous, actualized older adults that most people cannot honestly say, ‘yes, I want to be an elder when I grow up.’

We don’t normally associate old age with self-development and spiritual growth.  According to the conventional models of life-span development, aging is a process of gradually increasing personal diminishment and disengagement from life.   

But, our lifespan continues to expand and calls out for increased consciousness.  If added years are not matched by an expansion of awareness, life becomes depressive and without meaning.  As all older adults make the transition into what sociologists call the “Third Age,” they need a psycho-spiritual model of development that enables them to complete their life journey, harvest the wisdom of their years, and transmit a legacy to future generations.

Elders have traditionally been the wardens of culture. They have the evolutionary task of safeguarding healthy and effective parenting.  They contribute wisdom, balanced judgment, and enduring values to a society whose moral and spiritual foundations have eroded over the past several centuries.  Elders serve the larger world, not from a mystic sentimentalism, but from a felt experience, matured through contemplation. 

Rabbi Zalman, an  advocate of elder saging observes that: “where the hero seeks victory in the outer world, the elder seeks emancipation from it, based on freedom from social convention.  While the hero moves from obscurity into prominence, from present to future, the elder moves in the opposite direction, back home and towards the deeper and more fundamental strata of human experience.  No matter how passionately we pursue the hero’s journey it only takes us to the portals of old age, where we eventually must surrender our role in society and continue into the uncharted territory of spiritual eldering.”

Without the continuity of an elder tradition, young people fall prey to the excessive preoccupation with ‘nowness,’ an attitude that invites a complete rupture with the past.  Tradition is the ballast of civilization, without it we are tossed about by the arbitrary winds of fashion.  But the heirs of a tradition—whether in art, science or religion—must make the legacy bear new fruit, otherwise it grows desiccated and eventually dies.

So, there is quite a bit to digest here.  How does one even begin to sort through the various traditions and practices to approach this daunting quest of spiritual eldering?  

The path that I suggest is a very engaging model of eldering-- one quite adaptable to individual values and spirituality.  It is called “Sage-ing.”  Sage-ing is the process of approaching the ‘Third Age’ of life as a journey filled with new possibilities, enriched with wisdom and learning gleaned from life experience.  Approaching life in this positive way affirms not only the importance of contemplative practice through meditation, journaling, prayer or guided imagery, but also provides an opportunity to reflect upon personal intentions, values, interpersonal relationships and legacy. 

Sage-ing principles provide a foundation for transforming life experience into a legacy for future generations.  Individuals are encouraged to nurture and develop the highest qualities of spiritual maturity-- compassion, kindness, equanimity, patience and understanding, and to find applications in healing relationships, meaningful community service, and bringing personal passion and purpose to life.

The Sage-ing model was developed by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of The Sage-ing Guild, and author of the 1995 book “From Age-ing To Sage-ing.”  For the past 10 years he has been dedicated to refining and teaching these principles that address spiritual development and the psychosocial aspects of aging.  These principles have been offered in small learning and discussion circles, workshops, seminars and week-long retreats across the U.S. and Canada. 

Sage-ing principles do more than restore the elder to a position of honor and dignity.  They envision the elder as an agent of evolution, attracted as much by the future of humanity’s expanded consciousness potential as by the wisdom of the past.  An elder is a person filled with potential, still growing and learning and whose life continues to have  promise  and connection. 

The Sage-ing model provides practical tools and exercises to grow older with wisdom, maturity and understanding.  The Sage-ing principles are not specific to any faith or denomination and will serve to enhance spiritual maturity in any faith practice.  Curricula and resource materials address psychosocial spiritual aspects of aging and are drawn from the perennial truths of wisdom, tradition and faiths.

Further study with the Sage-ing model could begin with Reb Zalman’s  book “From Age-ing To Sage-ing.”  You might then decide to take an intensive 2-3 day introductory workshop that would provide the prerequisite training necessary to become a certified Sage-ing Leader which involves successfully completing a substantial training program over the course of a  year.

Or you could simply decide to  join a Circle of Elders who meet regularly to address issues of spiritual and personal growth from a perspective of contemplative maturity and wisdom and to share in meaningful and transformative conversations focusing on our expectations and experiences of aging.  These Circles are modeled on Native American elder circles—a gathering place for adults of the tribe to listen, reflect and bring life experience to issues at hand.

This writer is an advocate of spiritual eldering and the Sage-ing model, and recently completed the Sage-ing Intensive Workshop.  Later this fall our RSVP Volunteer Program plans on convening a group of elders to begin exploring a few of the many ways elders can become more productive as healers of family, community and stewards of the earth’s resources. For more information on the Sage-ing model or the development of our Circle of Elders contact Frank Kenney at 505-388-2523 or rsvpgrant@zianet.com .