Good morning. I met a friend once who looked very down in the dumps. He complained that he didn’t know what to do with himself all day, and his wife didn’t want him hanging around the house all the time.
What I discovered was that after spending his whole life building up a major business he had decided to retire. When I asked him if he had given any thought to it beforehand, he replied ruefully “No”. Though a highly successful business man, he had not prepared in any way for this major event in his personal life.
According to a new report from the House of Lords, we are in much the same position as a nation. “We are woefully underprepared” they say, and successive governments simply have not taken on board the massive changes taking place in our society in relation to ageing and retirement.
First their good news. By 2030 the number of people living over the age of 85 will double, and many of them will be fit and able to live an active and interesting life. They will be able to continue to identify with the old Anglican prayer “We bless thee for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life.” The bad news is that during that time there will be an 80% increase in the number of people suffering from dementia, rising to some 2 million, as well as a 50% increase in the number of people suffering from serious conditions such as strokes. Many people even now know the heartbreak and real difficulties that this brings.
The report from the Lords puts forward a range of policies to tackle this problem from raising the retirement age to 70, to making it easier for people to raise equity on their homes to pay for care. From a Christian point of view two principles seem quite clear. One is that as a society we have a duty to put in place policies which ensure that every elderly person is able to live with dignity and in reasonable comfort. The other is to remind ourselves that old age is a time of life to be positive about. After all, 76, the age of the new Pope, is, so they tell me, the new 35. If you did a survey amongst voluntary organisations you would find that the vast amount of voluntary work which goes on in our society is being carried out by people who are getting on a bit. They are at the heart of local communities all over the country. Then, not least, this third age in life is a time for rediscovering the pleasure of simply doing things for their own sake, not just to achieve work or family goals; a chance to rediscover or uncover the divine child within us. Jenny Joseph’s poem “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple” is one of the nation’s favourites because it suggests just this renewed sense of liberated playfulness in old age, as in her idea that we will once again enjoy the clatter of running a stick along railings.
According to the Bible Wisdom plays before God in delight (Proverbs 8.30). I find that a lovely idea, and not just an empty one: for heaven surely is a state in which in which there are no more targets to be achieved, no more goals to be reached, only the delight of engaging with, and enjoying, what is worthwhile just because it is worthwhile.