From the moment the image of a SETTING SUN was flashed on the screen to usher us into the

beginning of this Retreat Seminar, there was a sudden realization in me that indeed, the SUN is

one of the best if not the best imagery that could depict our life journey along with the magic it

unfolds at every moment, at every season. Every second is different from the previous one and

the next. If one has to capture the particular beauty of every ticking of the clock along with the

gradual, and continuous rising of the sun, one needs to be PRESENT to this PRESENCE – in an

attitude of complete TRUST and SURRENDER. That is probably why, besides many other

psychosocial reasons, ERIKSON specified TRUST as the basic developmental task that one has

to learn from the very start of life.

It is good to know that we are ONE WITH OUR SHADOW at the noontime of life, i.e. at

MIDLIFE – when the SUN is at its highest. Besides the PERSONA-SHADOW paradox that the

genius of Jung tries to tell us, It is, I realized, at MIDLIFE too that I am challenged not only to

acknowledge my SHADOW but to RECOGNIZE THE SUN whose BURNING INTENSITY

allows me to see CLARITY in the very darkness facing me. It is at MIDLIFE that I am called to

acknowledge even more the INTENSITY OF GOD’s LOVE, if not for whose grace at this

season of life my SHADOW would remain hidden – ignored both in the DANGER that it is

capable of doing and in the GIFTEDNESS that it prevents from benefitting people.

When we were asked to draw a clock, I drew one that is not the typically ROUND wall clock –

although I was at first instinct prompted to do just like the way anybody else would. Instead, I

was inspired to sketch the QUADRILATERAL wall clock at the Entrance of our Chapel at the

Main Convent. Looking into my “mental model”, 12:00 noon IS midlife, i.e. when one lives her

30s or 35s. I am turning 52 next month. And so I placed the hands of my clock at 5:00 in the

afternoon. Even while I was drawing it, I felt my heart throbbing, and so somehow I got a sense
how significant this HOUR for me is. It is at this very hour that COMMUNITY PRAYER TIME

at the convent starts. Initially I thought this is simply a call for a deeper kind of

CONTEMPLATION at this stage of my life. But then again, I realized, 5:00pm is not a time for

PERSONAL PRAYER – but rather, COMMUNITY PRAYER. In the Novitiate House where I

am presently assigned, 5:00 is set for COMMUNITY EUCHARISTIC ADORATION. Is God

calling me then to a deeper kind of COMMUNION with my SISTERS - such that I can be

PRESENT to their PRESENCE while we are all in the PRESENCE OF GOD? Is this TIME OF

MY LIFE a summons to WIDEN, not only to DEEPEN the expanse of my

CONTEMPLATION?

Moreover, the TREE I roughly sketched was an illustration of a fruitful one – shedding dried

leaves, yes, but growing new fresh ones. Some of the fruits were a bit too feebly attached to the

branches and had to fall, die, and rot. But such falls and deaths and rotting are welcomed by clay

earth either to start or to nourish the new shoots growing underneath.

I too am presently shedding and losing what I used to think were eternally mine – physical

strength, cognitive sharpness, youth. But along with those losses are new, fresh gains – a

growing capacity for GRATEFULNESS for everything that has been and what is, a greater depth

of WISDOM burrowed by the trials and errors of the past, and a more COMPASSIONATE

HEART that has learned how to LISTEN and to LOVE unconditionally – just like the heart of

the ONE from whose image and likeness I was formed.

I thought I was totally freed already from the issues that have been processed during my Initial

Formation and the Psychotherapy I have undergone as a part of my Course at the Formation

Training Institute 12 years ago. But being given the task to NAME the ISSUES I am presently

undergoing at this stage of my life, I was surprised – painfully to some extent – to discover that I
am not spared from experiencing the CRISIS OF LIMITS – in terms of BODILY CHANGES.

Such that the feelings of INSECURITY and REJECTION are like OLD GHOSTS buried alive

and are now rising like living dead. However, I was also quite surprised to discover that facing

my own ghosts at this point in my life seems not to be as scary as it used to be. I am now able to

look at them as they are, instead of running away from them or burying them alive once again.

Ghosts could be as friendly and helpful as Casper after all.

Is it plain COINCIDENCE or an awe-inspiring DIVINE HARMONY that the SECOND DAY of

the Retreat-Seminar falls on a DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY – where the Gospel talks about

Thomas being invited to TOUCH the WOUNDS OF JESUS? Is it plain coincidence or a

splendid DIVINE HARMONY that this Gospel comes along with the film “SHADOWLANDS”

– where C.S. Lewis teaches us how to undergo the process of GROWTH AND INTEGRATION

without skipping any of the painful steps triggered by getting WOUNDED?

We began the SECOND DAY with a MEDITATION on the Potter and the Clay. It is good to

discover that from the lens of an observer, the design that the potter moulds keep changing and

would normally think “THAT’S IT” already. But no, the changes, are a part of the INTEGRITY

of the final DESIGN – just as the “pains” then are a part of the happiness now, and the happiness

now is never divorced from the pains then. As Richard Rohr once said, “God ensures that it will

be all right in the end. If it is not all right, then it is not yet the end”. It is only when the potter

stops the machine that the final and true design of one’s life is completely revealed.

It was quite a revelation too that I am presently struggling between the polarities of MIDLIFE,

i.e. “BEING YOUNG and OLD” – at times too eager to initiate something new and creative

WHILE at times favouring and settling for the familiar and traditional; between

“ATTACHMENT and SEPARATENESS” - feeling like holding on to the community and

ministry I have held on to for eight years, WHILE letting go of it in order to allow the Master

Potter to make another curve in my design – in a community and ministry where His hand

would WILL to hold me.

Discussing and sharing on the SPIRITUALITY of TRANSITION, i.e. the SPIRITUALITY of

the IN-BETWEEN laid bare the HUMPS on the ROAD of my life that I kept on skipping and

jumping over – instead of UNDERGOING, instead of TOUCHING, instead of GRIEVING

OVER. It is only in “GOING UNDER” that one is led to “COMING OVER”. I thought I have

been quite good in HIGH JUMPS and MARATHON, only to find out now that LIFE is a

MINDFUL WALK.

WHAT IS THE PLACE OF SPIRITUALITY in the process of HUMAN GROWTH and

DEVELOPMENT specifically at Midlife and Ageing? Just as the mould of clay could never be

separated from the hands of the POTTER, human growth and development would never happen

without one’s INTIMATE CONNECTION with the ONE SOURCE of its life – with the ONE

whose moulding, and forming may seem to be too tough and too painful at times BUT one thing

is sure: He would never let us slip from the palm of His LOVING HAND.

It may not be that easy to see that HAND especially in such times that the moulding seems

crushing, when the paradoxes seem irreconcilable, and one simply wants to rush things up and

overcome the CRISIS OF LIMITS. BUT one’s CAPACITY or incapacity TO SEE does not

change the HAND a bit. The hand does not stop lovingly embracing, reassuring the mould,

hoping that this piece of clay would at least malleably TRUST its POTTER in complete, joyful

SURRENDER.
I found it thought-provoking and moving when MORRIE said that He moved from

AGNOSTICISM to FAITH when he finally realized that DEATH was nearing – just as a slice of

wave was about to be tossed to the shore. It was such a liberating realization for him that he is

not just a slice of wave but a part of the whole ocean. I am not a solitary individual but a precious

part interconnected with the whole of humanity. Everything that happens to every piece of wave

happens to the rest of the whole.

Where is SPIRITUALITY here then? The immense OCEAN of which we are a simple piece of

wave is LOVINGLY HELD in the palm of its MAKER. Even the SHORES that break us and

when the time comes would SEEM to END us, He and He alone holds. GROWTH and

DEVELOPMENT then involves FACING THE WINDS, dancing with it, learning from it,

GROWING ALONG WITH IT – always mindful of and never losing CONNECTION with the

ONE who “even the winds and the sea obey” ( Matthew 8:27).

Sr. Ednalin (“LEN”) D. Pineda, FMM

April 30, 2019
Spirituality of Midlife and Ageing