"The Garden of Love"

READING

Poet May Sarton addressed the themes of aging and bereavement throughout her life. She was already past the age of 60 when she wrote "In Suffolk." Her honesty and her love of nature reflect her Unitarian Universalist faith.

Mourning my old ways, guilt fills the mind, 

As memories well up from ripening gold

And I look far away over tilled land 

Watching splashed light and shadow on the fold 

Where restless clouds flock over and disband.

To what have I been faithful in the end?

 

What lover loved forever well or ill? 

As clouds come over to darken a line of trees 

And then far off shadow a wooded hill, 

I have to answer, "faithful only to these,

To earth itself turning toward the fall, 

To earth's relentless changing mysteries."

 

All lovers sow and reap their harvests from 

This flesh ever to be renewed and reconceived 

As the bright ploughs break open the dark loam. 

Whatever the cost and whatever I believed, 

Only the earth itself, great honeycomb, 

Gives comfort to the many times bereaved.

 

Whatever cloud comes over with black rain 

To make my life seem of so little worth, 

To cover the bright gold with guilt and pain, 

The poem, life itself, labor of birth 

Has been forced back again and again

To find renewal in the fertile earth.

 

Fidelity to what? To a gnarled tree, a root,

To the necessity for growth and discipline. 

Now I am old why mourn what had to go? 

Despite the loss and so much fallen fruit, 

The harvest is so rich it fills my bin. 

What had to grow has been allowed to grow.

 

THE GARDEN OF LOVE

A sermon by the Rev. Judith Meyer

Unitarian Universalist Community Church

Santa Monica, California

April 1, 2001

 

The results of a sixty-year study on aging

    are soon to be published in a book, titled "Aging Well,"

        written by the principal researcher, George Vaillant.

Vaillant himself is in his sixties now,

    having taken over the study some thirty years ago,

        when his subjects were nearly as young as he was.

The generation he has studied – "the greatest generation,"

    as some have called it –

        is growing old.

Some have died already.

But others continue to live and enjoy life.

Vaillant's patience has yielded interesting results.

What we can learn from his observations

    can help us live well,

        whatever age we may be.

 

The physical standards of healthy aging 

    are well known. 

And this study confirms that the predictors of a "happy-well" later life

    are what we might expect:

        a stable marriage or life partnership,

            a mature adaptive style,

                no smoking,

                    little use of alcohol,

                        regular exercise,

                            and maintenance of normal weight.

Vaillant describes the mature adaptive emotional style as little more than

    "making a lemon into lemonade,"

        and the use of altruism and a sense of humor

            in handling conflict and stress.

Beyond the physical factors, he states,

    "it is social aptitude, 

        not intellectual brilliance or parental social class,

            that leads to successful aging."

 

If you make it into the upper age ranges,

    you’ve probably maintained good health practices,

        but that is only the baseline for living longer.

How we live – as Vaillant describes it,

    whether we are "happy-well" or "sad-sick,"

        depends tremendously on attitude.

Vaillant contends that genetic factors

    and economic status have little to do with aging well either.

Once we're old, 

    relationships are what really matter.

 

The study indicates that "a mature coping style strengthens relationships

    because being able to handle emotional issues gracefully

        removes barriers between people."

Advancing age impairs some motor skills,

    but maturation can make people sharper at emotional tasks."

Vaillant contends that emotional development – and success –

    can occur late in life.

Although he trained as a psychoanalyst,

    he says,

        "Freud vastly overestimated the importance of childhood."

There is always time left to grow.

"You've got to learn to garden as you get older,"

    Vaillant concludes.

"Sow and re-sow the seeds of love."

Cultivating relationships doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert,

    a "people person,"

        "or a sales[person] who belongs to six country clubs

            and has a Christmas-card list 200 names long."

 

"Even having people who love you is not particularly important. …

What's critical is allowing yourself to love others,

    and being able to take people in –

        as in, 'I've got you under my skin.'

When someone gives you a compliment,

    do you cross the street,

        or do you feel genuinely good about yourself?

In a personal encounter, 

    do you come away feeling resentment or gratitude?

A simple lesson from the...study,"

    Vaillant advises,

        "is to worry less about cholesterol

            and more about gratitude and forgiveness."

 

As I read these words – which come from an interview with Vaillant

    in a college alumni/ae magazine –

        I was impressed, even inspired,

            by the implications of his work.

It sends a life-giving message that we need to receive,

    spiritual guidance for the long haul.

"With the passage of time and the exposure to experience,"

    he says, "an erosion of superior layers of the personality 

        can take place.

Parts of your life are exposed that were hidden from you,

    which you had no avenue to appreciate."

We become more emotionally transparent,

    which allows us to form stronger, 

        more intimate relationships with others.

 

"When we are old,

    Vaillant writes, 

        "our lives become the sum 

            of all whom we have loved.

It is important not to waste anyone.

One task of living out the last half of life

    is excavating and recovering all of those

        whom we loved in the first half.

Thus, the recovery of lost loves

    becomes an important way in which the past affects the present."

 

It's not an easy task,

    adding up the sum of all whom we have loved.

Vaillant's additional suggestion 

    that the work of the second half of life

        is to excavate and recover the loves of the first half

            is difficult to apply.

Many old loves are gone,

    in all the different ways people can leave each other –

        dead, 

            angry, 

                indifferent.

There are those we'd rather not visit again –

    in life or in memory,

        and it's disconcerting to invite them back into consciousness.

The poet May Sarton shows us

    how someone might go about such a task.

Few people have lived more self-consciously than May Sarton did.

Her poetry and journals document every stage of her life,

    its losses and loves;

        and she had many of each.

Her words tap the inner workings

    of someone aging with self-awareness,

        and remaining creative even when energy diminishes

            and the end is in sight.

For her, nothing is ever wasted either,

    and she assesses honestly and directly

        the sum of all she has loved.

 

"Now I am old," May Sarton writes,

    "why mourn what had to go?

        Despite the loss and so much fallen fruit,

            The harvest is so rich it fills my bin.

                What had to grow has been allowed to grow."

In her poem, "In Suffolk," 

    Sarton presents the image of the earth

        as the place to which she has returned repeatedly for renewal.

In the end, she states,

    it is the earth to which she has been faithful.

 

She pauses to consider guilt,

    and questions which of her lovers

        she loved "forever well or ill."

Upon reflection, 

    she sees that what has come of it all

        is a rich harvest of growth.

She forgives herself;

    she names what has commanded her fidelity;

        she is grateful.

 

One task of the second half of life

    is to recover and excavate lost loves,

        but another is to continue to love in the present.

I know from experience that you can live more than half your life

    before you find the right partner.

And that people are capable of welcoming others into their lives

    at any age,

        and when they do, 

            they grow.

 

Love is not limited to finding romance

    or a life partner, either.

As George Vaillant has learned from his study,

    love is not even about being loved.

It is about allowing ourselves to love others:

    friends, 

        children, 

            pets, 

                neighbors,

                    fellow congregants,

                        relatives,

                            co-workers.

It is about letting them "under our skin," as he says,

    and taking in the effect they have on us.

Some of us may live our whole lives

    without finding the right partner,

        but that doesn’t mean we've missed out on love.

We may have allowed to grow

    what needed to grow.

"Sow and re-sow the seeds of love," Vaillant advises.

Keep cultivating whatever will grow.

 

Certain kinds of growth cannot happen until later in life.

Remember the flower on the cactus

    in the story I told the children earlier.

That flower bloomed at just the right time,

    even though everyone – including the cactus –

        thought nothing would ever happen.

 

One of the surprising findings in Vaillant's study

    is that success does not necessarily come early in life.

Some who are successful early,

    may remain so.

And yet, Vaillant reports,

    "many … who looked unimpressive at 46

        had lives that became startlingly better.

This seems to be a consequence of continuing maturation..."

Whatever your stage of life,

    and however much you may –

        or may not – 

            have accomplished so far,

                if you keep growing,

                    you may surprise yourself

                        with what has yet to flower.

 

As we grow older,

    our physical limits intrude on our daily lives,

        and we spend time and emotional resources coping with this reality.

Sometimes simply coping can take all the time and energy we have –

    or think we have.

But the truth is that our emotional resources can grow stronger as we age.

Vaillant observes in his study

    that "maturation can make people

        sharper at emotional tasks."

We have more to work with,

    from the experience of coping with various adversities,

        and the wisdom to maintain our perspective.

 

While accepting loss and facing death are part of life at any time,

    our awareness is heightened as we age.

There is pain in watching the people we love

    decline and leave us –

        and much of this loss occurs

            when we are feeling our own vulnerability too.

All my life, I've always thought a lot about death,

    but even so, I am conscious of it more than ever

        as my own parents prepare for the end of their lives.

I know I will lose them soon,

    and that time moves forward for all of us –

        and that I am getting older,

            and that I will soon have to decide

                how I will handle all of this.

 

There is no avoiding the loss or the grieving that we have in life.

But I hope that whatever pain comes to me,

    I will trust that it can also bring me growth and wisdom.

If that is a choice I can make,

    I will try to make it.

A good life seems to depend on it.

The garden of love needs our work to keep growing.

But the wisdom we can take from it

    nourishes us as long as we live.

We can move from loss to acceptance,

    and from sorrow to gratitude,

        if we sow and re-sow the seeds of love,

            let them grow where they will,

                and where we allow them to.

Then wherever we are in life,

    and whatever our age,

        we still may –

            we still will –

                bloom with our glorious flower.

The article used as a text for this sermon is "The Talent for Aging Well," by Craig Lambert, inHarvard Magazine, March-April, 2001.