First, a poem…

At the center of every crisis 
is an inner space 
so deep, so beckoning, 
so suddenly and daringly vast, 
that it feels like a universe, 
feels like God. 

When the unthinkable happens, 
and does not relent, 
we fall through our hubris 
toward an inner flow, 
an abiding and rebirthing darkness 
that feels like home. 

— Dr. Barbara Holmes, “What Is Crisis Contemplation?”

As one who at 74 wants to get old well and who is consciously trying to discover what being an elder looks like, I consequently want to honestly embrace my mortality and remain curious and deliberate about my dying (spoiler: it’s a process and not just an event).  That’s where Holmes’ poem comes in. I’m intrigued by the second stanza and drawn to the potential of death as a life process, an “inner flow.”

My rumination has been enriched by a response shared by a friend with whom I did hospital chaplain residency a dozen years ago. She wrote: “Amen!  Ask: Is this darkness, darkness of the tomb? Or darkness of the womb?”  

Yes, death certainly “does not relent, and we fall through our hubris” into a dark tomb — echoing all those creedal formulae we babble unwittingly throughout our lives… “he descended into hell and on the third day…” And, yet, as Christians we proclaim this to be the darkness of the womb — “an abiding and rebirthing darkness that feels like home.” 

As we age, and especially in our elder years, we recognize this growing awareness not so much as a “profession of faith” but as an experiential foundation for our burgeoning hope!  As elders we transition from being persons of naive, doctrinal beliefs to those living with a reassuring, alluring hope we increasingly experience, at last, as HOMEcoming!