NEWS & VIEWS
Amen: As Old As You Feel

by Liz O'Connor

I’m looking forward to a birthday—not one with a zero at the end, so hardly worth mentioning here in middle-middle age, but it’s got me thinking about how relative age is.

When my mother was my age, I, the youngest of her six children, was in college, and I thought she was old. So did she. I imagine that having all those adult children was a factor; I, on the other hand, will continue to be “the baby” as long as I have living siblings.

A couple of years ago my oldest sister I and, who share a home, were hosting a family gathering. Sister number two was first to arrive, and I overheard the two of them talking about when “the kids” were coming. “Which kids?” I asked, thinking of the next generation. It turned out they meant “the kids” who were then respectively sixty and sixty-two. The effects of birth order never cease to fascinate me.

When my son, now thirty-five, was in grammar school, I enrolled him in a Saturday morning enrichment program for gifted children at a nearby college. It was too far to take him there, drive home, and then drive back to get him, so along with most of the other parents, I waited for him while he was in classes. We parents had fun together, sharing the odd joys and problems of parenting very intelligent kids. A researcher learned of this phenomenon, decided it was a golden opportunity to discover what kind of parents produced gifted children, and invited us to be research subjects.

Our task was to complete a thick sheaf of paper-and-pencil tests, ranging from the standard Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to questionnaires about how and when we began to suspect our offspring were extraordinary. The one I found most intriguing, though, was about age. As I recall, it asked us to begin by noting our chronological age at the top of the page. Then it said, “Disregarding your chronological age, how old do you feel when…” and then it had a long list of situations—when you’re happy, when you’re lonely, when you’re with your parents, when you’re with your spouse, when you’re anxious, when you’re with friends, when you’re angry, and so on. I found it a fascinating exercise. I also decided that the age I’d most like to stay was twenty-seven. What the test showed me was that I feel like different ages—and feel as though I were different people—depending on my emotional state and whom I’m with.

How old do I feel when I pray? It varies, just as who I am when I pray can seem to vary. God, after all, knows and cares for me as I am, which includes all the parts of me and even who I will become. It’s part of the mystery of eternity, of God being outside and greater than time. Usually, I guess, when I pray I’m my chronological age and what I think of as my regular self. Most of the time when I’m with my parish community at liturgy that’s who I am; I come to offer praise and thanksgiving and to share whatever I have as well as to be fed with word and sacrament.

But sometimes in my personal prayer I show up as a daughter in need of comfort, feeling seven or eighty-seven. Or I come to prayer angry, rebellious as a seventeen-year-old because something isn’t fair, needing to work that out of my system and find a better perspective. Or I may come to prayer overwhelmed by how greatly blessed I have been and just needing to give thanks. All of those prayer times can be rich and authentic, and I think they are more so when I can let go of being a competent, confident, adult and let those other parts of me come honestly before God.

In this issue our center section is about ministry to, with, and by people of different age cohorts. I found all the articles interesting because I could identify so strongly with each group: I remember vividly being the single mother of a toddler, a young adult, a teenager involved in church, and I expect that when I retire my volunteer work will center in some way around a parish. It’s said old age is terrible until you consider the alternatives. I’m not so sure I’d mind going early to meet the Lord, but I think I’m here as long as he has work for me to do. Meanwhile, in my heart I’m twenty-seven.

Liz O’Connor is the editor of CHURCH magazine.