The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully [Hardcover]

Joan Chittister (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

Not only accepting but also celebrating getting old, this inspirational and illuminating work looks at the many facets of the aging process, from purposes and challenges to struggles and surprises. Central throughout is a call to cherish the blessing of aging as a natural part of life that is active, productive, and deeply rewarding. Perhaps the most important dimension revealed lies in the awareness that there is a purpose to aging and intention built into every stage of life. Chittister reflects on many key issues, including the temptation towards isolation, the need to stay involved, the importance of health and well-being, what happens when old relationships end or shift, the fear of tomorrow, and the mystery of forever. Readers are encouraged to surmount their fears of getting older and find beauty in aging well.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Well-known in Catholic circles for her willingness to take on anybody-even the pope-in defense of women's rights, Chittister, now in her 70s, examines how it feels "to be facing that time of life for which there is no career plan." Clearly, getting older has not diminished the controversial nun, activist, lecturer and author of nearly 40 books on feminism, nonviolence and Benedictine wisdom. This collection of inspirational reflections, "not meant to be read in one sitting, or even in order, but one topic at a time," abounds in gentle insights and arresting aphorisms: "'Act your age' can be useful advice when you're seventeen; it's a mistake when you're seventy-seven." Beginning each short chapter with a trenchant quotation ("'It takes a long time,' Pablo Picasso wrote, 'to become young'"), she ponders topics such as fear, mystery, forgiveness and legacy. Old age is rich for those who choose to thrive, not wither: "We can recreate ourselves in order to be creative in the world in a different way than the boundaries of our previous life allowed."
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Review

"Clearly, getting older has not diminished the controversial nun, activist, lecturer and author of nearly 40 books on feminism, nonviolence and Benedictine wisdom. This collection of inspirational reflections, 'not meant to be read in one sitting, or even in order, [but] one topic at a time,' abounds in gentle insights and arresting aphorisms."  —Publishers Weekly

"Chittister beautifully downplays regrets and accents the rewards of a mature life. While she acknowledges the pain of old age, she focuses on the new beginnings that life can offer at this stage. . . . Excellent information and would make a positive contribution to any public library's collection."  —Library Journal

"Joan Chittister is one of the great spiritual teachers of our generation."  —Lawrence Kushner, author, Kabbalah: A Love Story

"A prophetic voice that is desperately needed in our troubled time."  —Karen Armstrong, author, The Great Transformation

"It's the best book I have read on the subject of aging, a dazzling work radiant with gems of insight on every page. It will be my spiritual reading in the days ahead."  —Andrew Greeley, author, The Great Mysteries

"Brims with insight, pluck, verve and courage. . . . It shows us both the joys and the challenges of growing older, and encourages us to discover the deep spiritual meaning that can come with older age."  —Helen Prejean, author, Dead Man Walking

"An amazing compendium of wisdom not only for people facing aging or providing support, but for everyone who wants to live a spiritually centered and balanced life."  —Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun Magazine

"In a world that glorifies youth and degrades old age, the words of Joan Chittister about aging are a precious gift. Through numerous insights, she invites us to realize that old age is not a drawing away from a fulfilling life, but a new life unto itself."  —Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author, The Garden of Truth

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Bluebridge; 1 edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933346108
• ISBN-13: 978-1933346106
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joan Chittister, OSB (1936- ) is a Benedictine Sister of Erie, PA. She is the author of over 40 books--ten of which have won Catholic Press Association Awards (the latest 2011: God's Tender Mercy). Her book, The Monastery of the Heart: an invitation to a meaningful life, is prelude to a movement for all seekers: Monasteries of the Heart, recently begun by her Benedictine community. Sister Joan is an international speaker who inspires both her audiences and readers with her passion for justice, for equality and for peace, especially for women in both society and the church. Her PhD is from Penn State University in Speech-Communication Theory. She serves as Executive Director of Benetvision, a research and resource center for contemporary spirituality.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

229 of 236 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons in How to Live for Any Age!, May 9, 2008

By 

Patrice Fagnant-macarthur (Springfield, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (Hardcover)

When "The Gift of Years" by Joan Chittister made its way to my mailbox for me to review, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Was I really the right person to be reviewing this? After all, I am in my thirties, transitioning from youth to middle age. I'm not quite ready for senior citizen status yet. As it turned out, "The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully" is a wonderful lesson in how to live, regardless of our chronological age.

Chittister, a Benedictine sister, is 70 years old. She suggests that she may actually be too young to write this book because life still has lessons left to offer. She "reserves the right to revise this edition when she is ninety." Chittister views how we life at any age to be a choice. We are each given the gift of today. It is up to us what we do with it. She counters the idea that old age need be a time of isolation and loneliness and uselessness. Rather, it can be a time of great connectedness and joy and purpose. It is a time for looking back, not with the pain of regret for opportunities lost, but with understanding of how the life that has been lived has meaning for who we are right now and what our future holds.

Chittister maintains that senior citizens have so much to offer to the world at large. Their wisdom and their stories and their experience are a great gift. They also have the time to get involved. Without the pressures of a 9-to-5 job or raising a family, they can volunteer more, make more of a difference. They have the chance to do all the things that they always wanted to do that there was never time for before. "Age does not forgive us our responsibility to give the world back to God a bit better than it was because we were here."

Of course, there are special challenges that come with the transition to later adulthood and Chittister does acknowledge that fact. It can be difficult to be older in a world that so values youth. It can be hard to reclaim a sense of self with everything that defined that self is now gone. It can be a struggle to cope with physical ailments and disabilities. As Chittister states, however, "there is no such thing as not coping. . . The only issue is whether we will choose to cope well or poorly." We do have a choice. We can adjust our way of thinking and our way of being or we can give up.

Mostly, though, being older brings freedom. "We are free now to choose the way we live in the world, the way we relate to the world around us, the attitudes we take to life, the meaning we get out of it, the gifts we put into it. And all of them can change." "The Gift of Years" is a gift in itself. It provides the opportunity to reflect on what it means to grow older and provides hope for a time of life that holds great promise.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Life That is Waiting for Us, December 8, 2008

By 

Story Circle Book Reviews - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (Hardcover)

"The thing most wrong about this book," Joan Chittister tells us in this vibrant collection of essays on growing old, "is that I may be too young to write it. I am, after all, only seventy." She is, she tells us, among those whom gerontologists call the "young old," those who are sixty-five to seventy-four and may not yet have attained the ripest wisdom.

We are indeed fortunate that Chittister decided not to postpone the writing of The Gift of Years, for it is full of the grace of decades of thought and meditation. It is written not only for those of us who are among the old, but for everyone: we are all growing older, and all of us may eventually undertake the search for meaning and fulfillment that lies at the deepest heart of the aging process.

The Gift of Years is a full basket of rich gifts: forty-plus short essays on the many dimensions of eldering, "its purpose and its challenges, its struggles and its surprises." Each essay begins with words of wisdom from someone who has considered the meaning of growing old, then tells a brief story or an anecdote, offers a reflection, and invites us to participate in a meditation on the burden and blessing of the years.

In "Time," for instance, Chittister quotes Pablo Picasso: "It takes a long time to become young." There is an anecdote about a potter named Thomas, who at eighty had lived long enough "to release the beginner in himself again and again." There are reflections: time ages things; time deepens things; time ripens things. And then there is the meditation. The burden of years is allowing time to "hang heavy on my hands," Chittister writes; a blessing of years is to "realize what an important and lively time this final period is."

Chittister's essays are rich in variety, nimble in thought, and resonantly prophetic in voice. She writes about regret, relationships, religion; about fulfillment and freedom; about limitations. This is a book to be kept beside a favorite chair and savored slowly, thoughtfully--no gulping here--and to be reread as we move into "the twilight time," the last years in which we must find the strength to trust others, bear weakness well, and surrender to acceptance. These are the years, she says, quoting E.M. Forster, when we must be "willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully is not just for elders. It is for all those who are searching for ways to learn, grow, and make the best of our gifts in deeply troubled times.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

73 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars mind over body, October 17, 2008

By 

Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (Hardcover)

Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, has written over twenty-five books that map the terrain of the Christian life, with special attention paid to issues of feminism, international justice, the monastics, and reform in the Catholic Church. I've especially enjoyed Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope (2003) based upon the Jacob narrative, Listen with the Heart (2003), and Called to Question (2004). In The Gift of Years she writes for a broader audience that is not necessarily Christian or even religious.

Now that she has passed her seventieth birthday, Chittister explores what it means to grow older gracefully. To do this she has written short (3-5 pages each) meditations on forty themes like regret, ageism, adjustment, letting go, sadness, solitude, success, etc. She begins each chapter with a pithy aphorism from a broad range of poets and prophets, both ancient and modern -- Plato and Picasso, Browning and Byron, Emily Dickinson and Jung. After the brief meditation, she summarizes the chapter by observing both the "burden" and the "blessing" of the theme under consideration. On the idea of the future, for example, she writes, "The burden of these years is to assume that the future is already over. A blessing of these years is to give another whole meaning to what it is to be alive, to be ourselves, to be full of life. Our own life."

Which is to say that much of my future of growing older is what I intentionally choose to make it. We all face the inexorable biology of the body and the deterioration of our physical condition. But we also enjoy the possibilities of the "eternity of the spirit" and the frame of mind we choose to follow. One can choose to age passively or actively, says Chittister. That is wisdom worth pondering, especially when you consider that the average retirement age is about sixty-four, which means the average American also has another twenty years to live and to love. Having worked long and hard to make a living, Chittister advises that our older years offer us the chance to make a life.