Last week, before an audience of some 50 people at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, I had the chance to talk about aging with theologian Harvey Cox. Now age 73, Cox has established a wide reputation as teacher, writer, and spiritual leader. Our conversation demonstrated once again why he is so highly regarded by his own students and other people interested in religious issues.

My first question wondered how my friend’s spiritual life has changed over the years. Some of the answer I already knew because Professor Cox, in his most recent book “Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian’s Journey Through the Jewish Year,” tells of the joy he has found through sharing in the Jewish tradition of his wife and teenage son.

When younger, he felt suspicious of the external marks of religion, but now he has come to appreciate the “tangible signs of the spiritual realm.” The Jewish faith, based on a calendar of events rather than a creed, now speaks to him. So does the Mezuzah that now hangs on the door of his house. “Thank God, I’m home,” he says to himself as he touches this object on arriving back from a hard day of work.

My second inquiry raised a difficult question, even for a theologian. I asked my friend how his ideas about God have changed. In response he said: “When I was younger, I thought I knew a lot more about God than I do now.” This theologian went on to explain how he learned from his teacher at Harvard Divinity School, Paul Tillich, that the biggest mistake is to take religious images literally. God remains beyond all imagery, even Tillich’s famous description of God as “the ground of being.”

I next asked Cox how he responds to the “small insults” of later life, the pains and other sufferings one encounters along the way. He calls them “a drag,” and often feels resentful of them. But when, because of eye surgery, he had to lie on his stomach for two weeks, he experienced warm feelings stirred by friends coming by to talk with him and offer their support.

About new sources of creativity in later life, Cox feels convinced of their power to preserve the health of our brains. He recommends doing something that “has not been part of your repertory,” such things as writing poetry or taking up a new language. This latter is what he is doing as he studies Islam and tries to learn some Arabic.

My question about meditation and contemplation evoked some more of Cox’s spiritual history. Decades ago he felt drawn to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and especially its practice of contemplative practice. The person assigned to teach him meditation was Allen Ginsburg, the famous Beat poet, whom Cox calls “a terrible teacher.”

In time, he was referred to the Benedictines and, for years, has made it a point to stay twice a year at Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, making his own retreats. Another vital element in Cox’s spiritual practice is his family’s weekly observance of the Sabbath. Starting on Friday evening, he shuts off the computer and abstains from doing any business through Saturday. In this weekly practice he finds great spiritual value.

A member of the audience asked our guest about “the next thing” –  – what is likely to be most significant in the near future. Cox believes it may be religious diversity, now all around us. He cited the answer given by one of his undergraduate students from whom he had asked his reasons for taking a course in world religions. “My roommate is a Muslim, my chemistry partner is Jewish, my girl friend is Buddhist,” the student repied.

Another person asked about the connection between science and spirituality. In response, Professor Cox shared what he learned from the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould when they taught a course together. “I’m grateful for what science has done because it has made religion more honest,” he replied. The other main impact of science has been to raise questions that science itself is incapable of answering, moral issues that confront everyone.

A woman sought more details about the pilgrimage that Cox had referred to earlier. He then told of visiting the South where he had been active in the 1960s in the struggle for civil rights. Traveling with his 16-year-old son, Cox wanted to introduce the boy to a part of American history that looms large in his own life also. As he showed his son the jail in North Carolina where he was held for a few days, the excitement of that time came back. He looks back with some longing to an era in our history when people were empowered to fight for something vitally important.

This pilgrimage struck me as a fine response to an question many older people ask themselves: How can I pass on to my children and grandchildren my legacy of precious personal experience?

Anyone inclined to judge theologians out of touch with real life has obviously never talked with Harvey Cox.

Richard Griffin