Republished from the interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking. April 13. 2012
“The world needs beauty. People hunger for it, and I intend to give it to them,” Josefina de Vasconcellos once told me. This eminent sculptress from England, and dear friend of mine, continued throughout her life to learn new techniques to improve her work and to enlarge her skills, which inspired me to consider “age” differently.
Josefina once remarked to me that the 80’s decade of her life was the most productive. At the time I was a 20-something young woman and she was well into her 80’s. It was encouraging to have a woman say that she improved with age. She proved what she shared with me, when, in her 90’s, Sir Richard Branson commissioned her to oversee three new recastings of her large statue, Reconciliation, first created after World War II.
To consider this creation, and the task of recasting it, is a tremendous undertaking at any age, yet Josefina, so filled with inspiration, was energized to complete the work. It now stands in several cities, as a testament, not only to her vision of forgiveness, but also to her love for the world, her dignity of soul, her spirituality, and to her refusal to consider her age as a limitation, but as an asset.
Recasting Age
And then there is Laura Dekker. In January of last year, despite government resistance banning her from sailing around the world in her yacht, Guppy, and to dire predictions of what would become of her, 16 year old Laura became the youngest person to circumnavigate the world single-handedly.
These two women, one continuing a career of exploration well past what is often considered retirement age, the other at the beginning of her life, have something in common. They are recasting age.
Practical prayer for every day living
Another woman, who challenged the concept of age from a spiritual perspective, is the 19th century Christian thinker, healer, and teacher Mary Baker Eddy. Her groundbreaking ideas about spirituality, prayer and health were published in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She founded a Christian church dedicated to finding healing answers to life’s challenges through thoughtful prayer. And at 87 she founded a non-denominational and highly acclaimed independent newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor. She lived what she discovered about life, not what the world thought about age.
So can a contemplative form of prayer change the way we view age – any age – with its health implications and fears? My experience is that it can, because the great wonder about prayer is its capacity to change the way we think – if we are willing to let it………to read more click HERE
By Anna Bowness-Park. You can find our more about me, on the Bio page.
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