Harvesting Our Lives

In a film about Henry VIII’s six wives, his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was a teenager when Henry, nearly fifty, married her. It didn’t go well, and Anne ended up in the Tower, facing execution by beheading for a treasonous relationship with a young man.

The night before her execution, she asked her jailer to bring the block so she could practice. Which she did. Gracefully putting her head on the block, she reportedly faced her death with courage, equanimity and dignity.

This scene came to mind as I was reading Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi’s book, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older. As we grow older, he writes, we encounter anxiety about our inevitable mortality, and deny the reality of our physical demise. It’s the unknown. As Religious Scientists, we believe our consciousness continues into another dimension, that we transition. But still, there may be nagging fears.

Oh well, “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” we say to ourselves.

Unlike Catherine in the Tower, we don’t know when it’s going to happen, or if we’ll suffer unspeakable decline. How depressing! Youth and vitality are fleeing, or have fled; my body is in decline. What’s left? I don’t like it. Aging is despicable!

The Rabbi recommends: shift from ageing to sageing. Become an elder rather than elderly. Integrate body, mind and soul to become a spiritual elder -- a fountain of wisdom to younger generations, a bridge builder to the future with freedom, life experience, knowledge of the past, and ability to survive and thrive. Use this transformation to advocate for the larger public good.

As teachers, mentors, role models, creative agents and custodians of humanity’s wisdom, elders can demonstrate a new paradigm of aging and enlightened values.

Elders who demonstrate zest, joy, service and deep meaning, empower themselves as well as younger generations, to re-evaluate aging as a promising time, a time of renewal and spiritual growth.

The first step, says the Rabbi, is to face our mortality. Look at time left, and figure out what to do with it. Rather than go back to work or get involved in the busyness of life, he suggests we “harvest” our lives.

Harvesting our lives! What is that, and how do we do that?

It’s an important task for life completeness, says the Rabbi. Basically it means life review, to reflect on our past experiences. They can be both positive and negative, successes and failures,. This helps us to understand the meaning of our lives.

How did we deal with these experiences in the past? Can we repair them? Can we forgive those who betrayed us? Can we see how traumatic events of the past, even when painful, moved us onto a different, even amazing path? Can we, with a broader understanding, reframe so-called failures into successes? Can we forgive ourselves for past regrettable behaviors?

And can we record what we have learned over a lifetime -- and who we have become -- so it is not lost in the dustbin of history but instead finds its way into global awareness?

When we, as elders or those on the path to becoming elders, do this work, says the Rabbi, we free ourselves to move forward, to enjoy and participate actively in the extended lifetimes common to our generation. With a sense of life completion, we can face mortality with the courage, equanimity and dignity of Catherine Howard.

Unlike Catherine, we have time --time to go forth as spiritual elders. As wisdom keepers, we become healers of family, community and Earth itself.  

And so it is.

Money and Energy

I’m currently enrolled in our Spiritual Center's Financial Prosperity class, based on Maria Nemeth’s book, The Energy of Money. What is this “energy of money?” It’s congealed energy," according to Joseph Campbell. "Releasing it reveals life’s possibilities.”

We use this energy of money to power and empower our lives, says Nemeth. When it flows, life is simply easier. Also, it’s a metaphor for our relationships with other forms of energy: time, physical vitality, enjoyment, creativity, and the support of friends. The way we deal with money is reflected in other aspects of our lives.We earn, spend, save, and invest money. It brings our goals and dreams into physical reality.

When we, as Religious Scientists, do spiritual mind treatment, we declare our intentions...what we desire to show up in our physical reality. Declaring these intentions isn’t enough, however; we have to “treat and use our feet.”

We have to take action. We let go of limiting beliefs in the metaphysical realm, know and declare our life intentions, and then get to work in the physical realm to make them happen.

Sometimes we have “trouble at the border,” says Nemeth, where the metaphysical realm meets physical reality. This is where monkey mind...that incessant inner chattering of worries, doubts and fears, tries to block us from any new or risky adventure.


I was reminded of a film I saw recently, The Last Word, starring Shirley MacLaine as 81-year-old Harriet Lawler, who is determined to have a positive, noteworthy obituary about herself when she transitions. She engages a young obit writer, Anne Sherman, to write it. Anne learns that no-one has anything good to say about Harriet, so the obit is abysmal.

What to do? Harriet decides to shape her legacy, to craft a life worth praising in print. She’s going to have “The Last Word.”

Analyzing a bunch of obits, she finds four essential ingredients: 1)loved by family; (she’s divorced from her husband and hasn’t seen her daughter in 20 years); 2) admired by co-workers;(they hated her bold, challenging, perfectionist, self-centered, bossy ways, and kicked her out of the company she founded);  3) touched someone’s life unexpectedly (preferably a disabled minority, and she doesn’t know any), and 4) the wild card.

So what’s the wild card? Something of such breadth and wonder that it is the opening line of the obituary.

The journey begins, and we see Harriet as not only this tough, challenging, success-driven woman, but a well of hard-earned wisdom.

“Are you willing to take a risk to do something stupid?, she asks a group of schoolgirls. “Are you willing to take a risk to do something great?”

“Fail.” Fail spectacularly. When you fail, you learn. When you fail, you live.”

And this one: “Please don’t have a nice day. Have a day that matters. Have a day that means something.”

Her love of music of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s lands her an unlikely gig as a disc jockey at station playing music for independent minds. A definite wild card.

Harriet didn’t have any trouble managing the energy of money, or dealing with Monkey Mind at the border between intention and accomplishment, or seeing her goals materialize in physical reality. She plowed ahead. She was willing to follow her dreams, take risks to live up to her potential, and stay true to herself in the process.

In the end, she touched others unexpectedly, especially the obit writer who became a risk taker. She was inspired to shift and lift, to change her thinking and change her life.
We can all learn from Harriet.

And so it is.