XVIII - 26 Again
Aging is a strange process. Working in the Church means working with the elderly, and one of my striking memories from beginning ministry was people of later years telling me that in their minds they were still in their twenties – that they did not recognise the face they saw in the mirror. There is a grief expressed in that sense of loss. On the other hand, my favourite quote to use at weddings is from that old romantic Karl Marx: ‘But where could I find a face whose every feature, even every wrinkle is a reminder of the greatest and sweetest memories of my life?’ I love Jeanette Winterson’s novel Written on the Body, and while I have no tattoos I understand the impulse – and perhaps it relates to a Christian soteriology that is directly written on the body: ‘by his stripes we are healed’ – not a reference to the Tiger – certainly not to our little Tiger cub who has caused so much trouble today. The point is often made that the resurrected body remains broken – its wounds are visible. Fans of vampire fiction (my last academic paper was on the theology of vampires, happily given in Utrecht which, in name at least, feels like it may have known our dark brothers) may have known that fear – what if I’m made a vampire too late – do I want to be eternally 89 when I could have been 26 forever? Or, going the other way, we might remember the frustration of the little girl vampire in Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, like Peter Pan never growing up.
It's a sign of age and class that some of that generation in Paddington (sorry I should call it the Hyde Park Estate or now and then “Tyburnia”) remembered having live-in staff as children. My evenings with The Famous Five are a good reminder how well staffed the middle classes were in the 1940s. One of the most striking things in travelling India is how many staff there are everywhere. In Britain it would be considered colossally inefficient. It must be the case that in India the cost of labour is cheap enough to deploy it generously. Speaking to young families it’s clear that concerns over childcare are mitigated by the expectation that middle-class families (as well as usually living with other members of their family) will have a couple of extra pairs of hands at their disposal, to cook, clean and watch little ones. Rhiannon has begun looking at house prices in Kerala.
Last year my elder brother turned 50 – you wouldn’t know it. He still has the restless energy of a 22 year-old. He’s my warning bell for what is coming though he is of course much older. It becomes quite striking through your forties how some people quickly look and behave middle-aged, while others seem untouched by time. Looking ahead I see it in every decade – those who resist their age and those who settle into it like a pair of comfy slippers. I had always thought Rhiannon quite happy to settle into middle-age at 25, but in India she has turned back time and seems a lot younger for the adventure. Oberon seems to have adopted that older sibling characteristic of trying on adult personas at various times. He’s very keen to parent Apollo, and can be very serious, looking down at you from below with his glasses down his nose. He dresses like Harry Potter in the films – a 6 year old’s take on a teenager, and boy is he practising teenage attitudes. But then he can be the sweetest and cuddliest little boy, paralysed by tickling, with a loud gurgling laugh, and he takes off his glasses and looks like Christopher Robin.
It has only occurred to me in recent years that a person’s birthday is also a particularly significant event in the life of their mother! I told a friend earlier, who sent warm congratulations, that he should really be writing to her: my part being relatively simple. Being able to have a lovely chat with my mother without cost or difficulty from a remote coffee plantation is one of the significant advancements since my last extended period of travel. One of my realisations in the last week is how bad I’ve been since having children at staying in touch with friends and family. Perhaps it’s one of those mirages, where in changed circumstances you realise what's important, like getting your head above the clouds, only to find on descent that you cannot sustain the things you epiphanised. But, really, habits are everything in ethics and in trying to change, and the only thing we can do if we want to change is to force the habit until we have become the person we strive to be. Rhiannon’s frequent complaint about being married to a vicar is that we only have half a weekend and it’s not enough time to visit friends and family. Combined with working at Easter and Christmas, friendships can be one of the greatest personal costs of ministry. I think I’m probably not the only person with small children who needs to be more intentional about maintaining my own relationships, and reminded that friendship is one of the key themes of John’s Gospel and so the faith. In any case, aging is not something that should be done alone, and, however old or young we happen to look, we can’t change the carriage we're in so had better find some good people to share the journey with.
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