There is an assumption about life that I think deserves some questioning. We assume that as we grow older, we naturally grow wiser. We imagine that the passing years will bring greater perspective, emotional maturity, deeper relationships, and a clearer understanding of what really matters. And sometimes they do.
But I have met people in their thirties who possess an extraordinary depth of wisdom and compassion. And I've met people in their 80’s who are still carrying the same resentments, fears, and insecurities that shaped their lives decades earlier.
I've noticed some of those unfinished lessons in my own life, too. Time gives us experiences. What we do with those experiences shapes who we become. This has been on my mind as I've been reading Ronald Rolheiser's The Holy Longing. Rolheiser is a Catholic priest and spiritual writer who has written three books exploring the journey of Christian spirituality through different stages of maturity. Youll see the others coming soon.
The Holy Longing establishes the foundational practices of the spiritual life. His second book, Sacred Fire, explores the movement into deeper Christian maturity, and his newest book Insain For The Light talks about the spirituality needed in the 3rd of life.
What I find particularly interesting is the relationship between these stages.
The first book is often associated with the first third of life, when we are developing the foundations of our identity, relationships, commitments, and spirituality. But as I read it, I kept having the same thought. I don't think most of us fully learned these lessons in the first third of our lives. And I wonder how much that matters. Consider what Rolheiser teaches us about desire. Every human being carries within them a powerful longing for connection, meaning, intimacy, purpose, and love. Learning to live with that longing is one of the foundational tasks of spiritual formation. But how many of us arrive in midlife still trying to satisfy our deepest longings through achievement, approval, accumulation, or the constant pursuit of something new? How many of us are still learning how to be content or still struggle to recognize the difference between the things that temporarily excite us and the things that actually give us life?
Or consider what Rolheiser teaches about community. One of the foundational spiritual lessons is learning to live in meaningful relationships with other people. Relationships require us to develop empathy, patience, forgiveness, and the capacity to make room for someone else's experience. Yet we can spend decades surrounded by people without ever developing those capacities. We can become very good at maintaining relationships that are comfortable and avoiding relationships that require us to grow.
Then there is the spiritual practice of grieving. Rolheiser writes beautifully about the necessity of mourning the losses that inevitably come with being human. Every stage of life involves letting go. We let go of earlier versions of ourselves. We let go of dreams that never came to be, and relationships that have changed, opportunities that have passed, and expectations that life did not fulfill. And sometimes we keep carrying those losses long after the moment has passed. They begin to shape the way we see the world. Unprocessed disappointment can become cynicism. Unacknowledged grief can become resentment. Fear can slowly narrow our willingness to risk, love, and trust.
This is one of the reasons I think returning to the foundations of spirituality is so important. We cannot assume that we have learned a lesson simply because we have lived long enough to encounter it. Some lessons require us to return to them again and again. And perhaps this is particularly important in the second and third thirds of life.
At Saint Matthew, we have been spending a great deal of time thinking about what it means to develop deeply formed lives across the entire human journey. I am increasingly convinced that spiritual formation is not a curriculum we complete. It is a lifelong process of becoming more fully human. And the lessons build upon one another.
It is difficult to experience the deeper freedom of spiritual maturity if we have never learned how to acknowledge our desires.
It is difficult to become truly generous if we are still desperately trying to establish our own worth.
It is difficult to offer wisdom and compassion to others if we have never made peace with the disappointments of our own lives.
It is difficult to receive the gifts of aging if we are unable to grieve the things that aging asks us to release.
We carry our unfinished formation with us. And what gives me hope is that those unfinished places are still available for growth.
I think this is one of the most beautiful aspects of Christian faith. God continues to meet us wherever we are.
There is no expiration date on transformation. The person who has spent fifty years protecting themselves from vulnerability can still learn to open their heart. The person who has spent decades carrying resentment can still discover the freedom of forgiveness. The person who has built their entire identity around accomplishment can still learn that their worth has never depended upon what they produce. And the person who has spent a lifetime practicing faith can still discover something new about the wideness of God's love.
In the Christian tradition, we call this grace. I wonder whether we sometimes misunderstand the spiritual journey because we imagine that maturity means moving beyond the lessons we learned earlier. Perhaps maturity also requires returning to those lessons with new eyes.
This is what makes Rolheiser's trilogy so compelling to me. Each stage of life carries its own spiritual invitations. But those invitations are connected to everything that came before. We keep building upon the foundations. And sometimes we discover that a foundation needs a little more attention before we can continue building.
I suspect that is true for most of us.
So here is the question I've been carrying since reading The Holy Longing.
What spiritual lesson have I been carrying with me for years that God may still be inviting me to learn? Whatever it is, I find myself grateful that the spiritual journey remains open. We are still becoming.
