Little Song

Rainbow song in the rain
The magic of dying light
Joy like a sweet refrain
Fading in the night
The Madonna’s face in pain
Life’s bitter delight…

The wind that blasts the bloom
The wreath laid on the tomb
Pleasure all too brief.
Star to darkness hurled:
Veil of beauty and grief
Over the depths of the world.

–Hermann Hesse

A return to Fort Wayne, other things, makes me feel old. This is not bad. It made me think of the collection of Hermann Hesse writing titled ‘Hymn to Old Age’. A time and a season for all things, growing old is God given. Everything from God is good. To accept aging, to find contemplative beauty within is the movement toward wisdom, the enjoyment, savoring, of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Acceptance, living within a Divine enfolding, moving deeper into unity, the Trinity emerges supreme, a goal for the attaining.

Stages

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.
Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

–Hermann Hesse

Avoiding sensationalism, halting the over-thinking of common daily activities, content with not forcing the interpretation of signs from the Holy Spirit, I was amused by an incident after entering the above concentration upon old age. Walking back from the grocery store a ghetto cruiser stopped in the middle of a turn to address me, calling out, ‘Hey young man’. I chuckled. It was my neighbor with a car load of brothers. ‘What did you think of the Cavs game? Championship all the way I’m thinking’. I smiled deeply, happy to be called a young man, easily, instantly breaking into excited basketball chat. Spiritually, psychologically, maturity ripens into an advanced age, yet the child within, detached, stills takes pleasure in roaring.