Living Life at 70

Who Am I?

I promised to write about my discussion with my groups of friends about our beliefs, our sense of who we are , our values and makes us happy.

My group had a lively discussion on the subject of identity.

I think the problem is that we can’t get away from our ‘roles’ ( mother, teacher, wife etc) But my own life experience tells me that roles are impermanent and not reliable guide in identifying the person we are. If we depend on our roles to define us we are in serious trouble.

But we can indeed define who we are by looking at, not what we do - ‘ the doing’ bit- against the ‘being’ bit of us which may be more fundamental to our being and which drives us to do what we ‘do’ ie. our roles. This was what we were heading towards at the end of the discussion.

So here goes my list:

women, individual, Indian (malayalee), educated, liberal, passionate, responsible, loving, caring, compassionate, non-conformist, anxious, fearful, self-critical, perfectionist, an underdog and defender of underdogs, spiritual and so on. Probably can think of more.

What makes us happy is also connected to our beliefs and our sense of who we are. So here is a random list of:-

What makes me Happy

• Having friends around and seeing them happy
• Spending time with my family
• Walking with a companion – on the beach, in a park surrounded by nature
• Having a glass of wine with friends/family
• Reading
• Listening to music
• Having quiet times
• Doing research?
• Watching a sunset/ a storm
• Driving down Mt. Pleasant on a sunny day
• When somebody smiles at me , recognizes me
• When somebody complements me
• When I write; when the writing is published
• Cooking breakfast for Grace, Mathew and William
• Shopping
• Helping young people esp. young people to enjoy what they do
• Having a slow, relaxing morning
• Reading the newspaper in bed and having my first cup of coffee
• Sitting in a quaint/cheery/friendly café with a friend or with friends and watching people
• Window shopping and looking at beautiful things
• Being surrounded by beautiful things
• Wearing nice clothes
• Watching romantic comedies
• Sharing nice things – food, holiday, a movie, a walk in the park, a meal or just sitting around with somebody I love

I was hugely relieved and very happy when I discovered a theologian who spoke to me and affirmed my experience of God.

So very briefly some thoughts on the subject of God.

God according to Nicholas Lash

(Nicholas Lash ( born 19340) was Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University)

(The following extract is based on the doctoral dissertation “The Doctrine of God According to Cornelius Ernst, Herbert Maccabe and Nicholas Lash” by Rev’d Dr. Sean Fernandez)

From the few, very few, theologians I have read up on, I find Nicholas Lash to be my kind of theologian. Christianity is, he says fundamentally a ‘way of life’ - A form of practical engagement with theoretical implications.

He believes that God is a description rather than a proper noun ( I like that). God is not a thing or a being of a particular kind. Thus to believe that God exists is to believe that there exists ‘something’ which has divine attributes.

How do we encounter God in human life? Lash tells us to consider certain common features of human experience – sometimes liminal experiences, but more often everyday experiences of love, joy, sorrow etc : Consider them as features of your experience.

What is, therefore, to believe in him? It is believing to love, in believing to delight, in believing to walk towards him, and be incorporated amongst the limbs or members of his body. Worshipping God is a relationship with God; it is also a friendship with God and friendship with God is also friendship between peoples.

God is as distant as he is close. Lash emphasizes that we cannot know what God is. But God gives form to his presence amongst the people in his demands for justice. It is in this world that God has given us the task of building true human community.

Values according to Suzy Welch in “10-10-10” allows us to live in sync with our authentic dreams, hopes and beliefs.

It has been a week since my fall and I am still confined to home and nursing a painful ankle and wrist. I can see myself thus confined for some weeks and it is in times like these that I am reminded of  the increasing vulnerability of aging, especially for people living alone.

Today is Sunday and I was angry and frustrated by my confined state. So I decided to get out, pain notwithstanding. Where could I go so I don’t feel socially isolated? I could go to Church - that didn’t come to mind as readily as Singaporean’s favourite outing - the Mall. I drove to Thomson Plaza, filled with Sunday morning shoppers, negotiated around people and shelves, without hurting myself even further. The outing did help - I did get rid of the feeling of isolation, helplessness and dependency.

Then I wondered about all those people with fewer resources and social net works! And I was reminded of a comment by Mother Theresa and here it is:

“In the developed countries there is a poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love. There is no greater sickness in the world today than that one”.

I wondered if Mother Theresa’s conclusion of the state of developed countries is the reason for the highest rate of suicides of older men in Singapore. I speculated about the demand for a mental hospital with the largest number of beds? Then I wondered why we as individuals, as friends, as mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, spend so much time on work!

I am also guilty of this. While I was busy with work I too had neglected my other needs ( the things I could have done to enable me to smell the roses and nurture my spirits/soul).

The phrase, eloquent and poignant, ” the poverty of spirit’ as used by Mother Theresa drives home the concept that the sense of  humanity -  concern for the human being in all of us ( nurturing our spirits) - should be an equally important concern as earning a living.

I had better do something quickly. According to statistics I could live another 20 years and I most certainly want to avoid the situation of going to a Shopping Mall for company!!

Maybe you should come to Perth and learn to live a quiet life and learn that you are no longer the centre of things, my sister said.

My term as president of AWARE was over and the trauma of the take over by a group of women who had a different goal for the organaisation was behind me. I  suffered from withdrawl symptoms for a while- from being intensely busy and preoccupied to  nothing to do. Most mornings I happily stayed in bed reading, with no feeling of rush to meet a deadline or a meeting. It was good to be able to do that. But there were days too of feeling unwanted and neglected. Hence my sister’s suggestion to go over to Perth.

I was having none of that. I was determined to stay right where I am and deal with my current reality and figure out what to do next. And yesterday morning I thought that I had figured it out. I was ready to make myself a schedule, of writing, reading,  exploring research opportunities, gym and socialising so that I don’t spend the day just daydreaming and reading and pottering around the house.

I went off to see a movie first though before I started working on a schedule. And what happened? I rushed out of the Dobhy Ghaut MRT station and on to the atrium in front of Plaza Singapura, missed a step and fell flat on the concrete floor, on my face. Everything happened so quickly. Before I could even figure  out what had happened a number of people came to my aid and helped me up. By the time i was helped up my left ankle had grown to the size of a tennis ball, my glasses had broken in the fall; I had hurt my right knee, my right shoulders and my left wrist.

I was angry with myself for not looking where I was going. But what surprised me was that I was relaxed, in a bit of shock I am sure, but felt no sense of embarrassment that I had fallen flat on my face in front a great number of people. It must have to do with the fact that as you age very few things cause embarrassment. And i told my sister “Well”, I said, ” I did it again. I was in the centre of things’!!

But then sitting here, propped up against a cushion, with my swollen foot raised, I am wondering what the universe was trying to tell me just when I was ready to take off and do something constructive with my life after a five-month haitus.

The scene was the newly upgraded and landscaped entrance of the MacRitchie Reservoir and I was enjoying the sun-drenched morning.

The sun  glistened through the freshly watered plants; the sunbirds flitted about, flying from one wet bush to another. The morning was fresh. The garden was lush, green, and delightful. Suddenly behind me I heard a loud clearing of the throat and just as quickly and loudly she spat the muck into the freshly-watered plants.

The magic of the moment was broken for me and it took me sometime to get rid of that act of ugliness from my mind.

Where ever you go, whatever the environment you will find an ugly Singaporean to remind us that a sense of civility is still a long way away!