A speaking gig in Florida last weekend has given me contact once more with America’s future. So many people down there have reached age 65 that one gets a glimpse of how the whole country will look in the year 2030. By that time, one in every five of us Americans will have attained that level of longevity.

Certain highlights of my short stay at a church in West Palm Beach stand out boldly. It was impressive to see large numbers of retired men and women come to worship in various degrees of vigor. Some elders obviously enjoyed bustling good health; others displayed bodies in notable disrepair.

I focused with admiration on one couple in particular, she painfully shuffling along hobbled by the effects of stroke, while he cheerfully provided major support, smiling all during his wife’s uncertain progress toward the entrance.

Evidences of such courage buoyed up my spirit. Another retired couple were helping an adult son walk, the latter having been crippled by the effects of a brain tumor. Scenes like these justify what one of the hymns sung in that church calls the world – – “this valley of tears.” Yet I had to admire the way these people struggled with their disabilities.

That is presumably a major reason why they come to church in such large numbers. They want to understand what later life is all about and to derive spiritual strength for its trials. Presumably many learn to balance their experience of physical decline with interior growth. They may even lay hold of the mystical dimensions of their faith and move to a new level of spirituality.

That level finds expression in a prayer I quoted in the course of one talk. The Jesuit anthropologist, Teilhard de Chardin, whose cult flourished in the 1960s, wrote: “O God, grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only that my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself.”

Not everyone would be comfortable with this mystical language but it expresses the faith of a profound priest-scientist who loved both God and the world of nature.

Another aspect of church life that caught my attention once more was its intergenerational quality. My gerontologist friend Harry Moody likes to point out the power of the church to unify people of various ages. He thinks that it is probably the social institution that does this best and I am inclined to agree with him.

Although the average age in that church was high, still I was glad to see families with young children as well. In fact, at one of the liturgies we celebrated the baptism of a seven year old boy with a name redolent of French history. Clovis was baptized to the acclaim of all the other parishioners, some of them presumably in their ninth and tenth decades of life.

Not all the images from my brief gerontological survey can be called upbeat. One late afternoon I was invited to an early bird dinner at a nearby restaurant. Next to our table was a seventy-something couple, the man facing me. All during their meal I watched to see if he would say anything to his companion. But, so far as I could discern, he spoke not a word to her throughout.

He downed his red wine, fed at his pasta, all without speaking a word and never changing expression. This couple, perhaps married for decades, offered a striking image of later life lived in quiet desperation.

A biblical reading from the next day’s liturgy struck me for its dynamic contrast with that restaurant scene. In the first book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible, one reads of Elkanah, the husband of two wives.

One of these wives, Hannah, weeps because she has never conceived a child. To console her, Elkanah then says, “Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” Not all husbands, it would seem, have attained Elkanah’s level of spousal love.

At a party in another setting down there, I talked with a 70ish woman who spoke of past and future surgeries for herself and her friends. Referring to those who needed and need replacements, she said “We all have hips.” She did so with a spirit blithe enough to retain cheerfulness in the face of burdensome physical problems that accompany aging.

A three-mile walk early one morning with a Florida friend helped implement my ideal of both physical and spiritual exercise every day. Moving along at a brisk pace with an old friend made the experience even better for me as we reviewed personalities and shared events.

However, as often noted previously, I was struck by how few of my age peers were out walking that morning or, for that matter, people of any age. Unhappily enough, pessimistic studies of American exercise habits would seem to be based in reality.

Richard Griffin

“Will you please keep it down? I’m trying to die here.” This is what my friend Hob told a group of Emergency Medical Technicians and others who were huddled around him as he lay on the floor of a restaurant. The EMTs must have felt astonished to hear a man joke as he prepared for death.

Hob thus came close to fulfilling a hope that he had voiced years earlier. When a friend asked him how he wanted his life to end, he had answered thus: “I want to die laughing.”

Death was no stranger to Hob. After all, he had done a kind of dress rehearsal for death by living for years with Alzheimer’s disease. His son, using a different metaphor, called it “Dad’s final exam.” With a typical combination of wit and seriousness, Hob himself named this affliction “horseblinders.”

His lightheartedness, mixed with a growing inability to say exactly what he wanted, often issued in striking phrases. The one I remember hearing with most poignancy came when he could not recall what he wanted to tell me. He motioned toward his wife and said: “She is my memory.”

Till close to the end, he retained enough control to create puns and use other figures of speech about his plight, a practice that helped make him what one family member calls “a beautiful model for living with illness.” A few days before that Thanksgiving, he announced: “It’s time to jump ship.”

These facts and many others about Hob emerged from a memorial service held three weeks after his death at age 78 on Thanksgiving Day. Like other friends who took part, I came away from this celebration of his life with a much better knowledge of a man I had thought already well known to me.

For the last several years we had been members of a meditation group, together with Hob’s wife Olivia and two other friends. Every few weeks, the five of us would gather in the mid-afternoon in his living room. After shared greetings, we would choose someone to softly ring a small bell and, sitting in a circle around a lighted candle and flowers, we would close our eyes for a half hour’s silence.

For someone like me who finds meditation difficult, it was helpful to feel the support of others as I turned inward. Afterward, we would exchange reflections on recent events in our lives and whatever insights we might have gained from the meditation. At such times, I especially valued Hob’s wide spiritual experience.

Hob was a true spiritual adventurer. In search of enlightenment, he and his wife Olivia traveled widely and absorbed the riches of various spiritual traditions. Hob became close friends with Father Bede Griffiths, an English Benedictine priest, who established an ashram and lived like a Hindu holy man in India.

Thich Nhat Hanh was another major source of inspiration for Hob. This Tibetan Buddhist monk, in fact, ordained Hob as an elder spiritual teacher, a role that held great meaning for him. Hob’s wide experience was a source of wonder for me because of my limited knowledge of traditions different from my own.

Friends who spoke at the memorial service brought out other facets of Hob’s life from times before spirituality became so important to him. It struck me that he was known by different first names at different points in his life. Those who knew him growing up tended toward “Harry;” others used his formal first name “Harrison;” and those who became familiar with him in his maturity tended to call him “Hob,” as I did.

Who but his oldest friends would ever have known about Hob being captain of the rifle team, a boy who broke the record in his prep school by scoring 496 points out of 500?

From his two now adult children at the service we learned about Hob as a father. His son referred to visitors who used to come to their home: “The presence of so many wisdom figures at an early formative age was his best gift to me.” His daughter recalled their many family trips: “We sang rounds in the car.” Until this time I did not know that singing was one of Hob’s favorite activities but I should have guessed this of such a buoyant personality.

If this brief remembrance of a multi-faceted friend leaves the impression that things were easy for him, that would be a false impression. Like the rest of us, Hob often found things difficult, especially in his last years. Though he could joke about death, he admitted how scared he sometimes was.

Yet I will remember the characterization given by one of his friends who spoke of his smile, his sense of mischief, his humor, and his “joy of life.” And I will especially cherish his unending search for light.

Richard Griffin

Winston Churchill first became Prime Minister of Great Britain when he was 65 years old. His accession to the leadership came after a long career filled with adventure. Some of his countrymen were unhappy about his becoming their leader in 1939 but he had become the indispensable man at a time of crisis unprecedented in his nation’s history.

These facts, familiar to many Americans of a certain age, came vividly to mind this holiday season as I read the new biography of Churchill by Roy Jenkins. It is a weighty volume, both literally and in the history it records, written by a now 80-year-old veteran of British public service.  For me, reading it stirred up memories of an era momentous in itself and also important in my personal development.

Looking back to my teenage years, I remember once seeing Winston Churchill. On a visit to the United States, he came to M.I.T. in 1949 and took part that university’s  Mid-Century Convocation. Unfortunately, I have no memory of what this eloquent man said on that occasion but I do vividly recall the difficulty with which he extricated himself from a low-slung chair. His physique by then made it no easy task to stand up from that position.

As a inveterate reader, I have often found much pleasure in history and biography. This particular book is so rich in event and personalities that it held me rapt as I read. Though familiar with much of the story recounted here, I felt a new relish in reliving imaginatively sagas that used to grab my attention each day in the newspapers.

The central character, Winston Churchill, is now regarded by many as the greatest Englishman in history. His accomplishments in staving off defeat in World War II will no doubt continue to stand out for their brilliance. At the same time, he never stopped being human with the faults that entails.

Churchill was also one of the most fascinating characters in his zest for life and the eccentricities that, in a nation famous for them, made him stand out. His love for food and drink and his habit of working in bed still endear him to readers as they did to his countrymen and us Americans during those war years.

It has often been said of the man that, if he had not become Prime Minister, he would have gone down in history as a magnificent failure. His record in several other government posts before the Second World War was marked by serious mistakes. He was a risk taker who often plunged ahead in actions that proved unwise. Notable among these blunders was the invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915 when, as First Lord of the Admiralty, he was largely responsible for what turned into a costly fiasco.

But from the moment that Churchill took over the government in 1939, his courage and stubbornness started to make a difference. Those who listened to his speeches then as I did will remember their eloquence. The power of his words was sufficient to rouse a disheartened nation to resistance in the face of an expected German invasion.

He was sometimes lucky, too. The rescue of some 335 thousand British and French troops from Dunkirk could not have happened if the German army had advanced to the coast and subjected those allied forces to attack.

The sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he recognized immediately as a benefit for Britain. He felt confident that this raid, so devastating to the United States, ensured eventual victory because it brought America into the war on the British side. His repeated efforts to convince Roosevelt to support Britain had become no longer necessary.

Churchill’s story becomes poignant as the allies’ war effort becomes more and more successful. By 1944, he realized that the Soviet Union would play a dominant role in Central and Eastern Europe, with Poland and other countries becoming subject to its will. He also became painfully aware that, for all its heroic success in winning the war, Great Britain had lost irretrievably its own empire and much of its economic power in the world.

He would live to be 91 years old. In the postwar years he received widespread recognition for what he had accomplished for his own country and  the western world. However, he also tasted the bitterness of rejection when his party was defeated in the first postwar national election. I remember feeling uncomprehending, in my naiveté, that the British could prefer someone else to this great lion of heroic accomplishment.

The world of 2002 now seems far removed from the World War II era. It has become fashionable to call the heroes of that time “the Greatest Generation.” That term, in my view, tends toward reverse ageism, in unduly favoring the old over the young. But Winston Churchill and those that he and other leaders led into battle then can surely inspire both young and old with what they achieved against great odds.

Richard Griffin

Do you think that anyone alive in the world today will live to be 150? Do you know anyone who would lay money on the table as a bet that it will happen?

Until I heard a talk by a reputable scientist last month, I thought that no level-headed professional considered it within the realm of possibility. After all, the longest recorded life span thus far is that of Jeanne Calment, the feisty French woman who reached 122. It seemed to me quite unlikely that any person now alive would beat that mark by 23 years.

But biologist Steven Austad from the University of Idaho thinks otherwise. He believes that someone now alive will live to see 150; he has also bet a colleague $500 on this outcome. You may, of course, look on this as a wager without risk since the bettor does not consider himself to be that record-breaking person.

Scientists like Austad believe that longevity breakthroughs will happen, not because of diseases being eliminated but because science will succeed in slowing down the rate of aging. He himself predicts that in the near future medications will come on the market that will make us age more slowly and thus live longer.

Another scientist of some repute, William Haseltine, goes further and sees a day when human beings can become immortal. Commenting on stem cell research, he has been quoted as saying: “Since we are a self-replacing entity, and do so reasonably well for many decades, there is no reason we can't go on forever.”

Thus some scientists take as goal the extension of human life as far as possible. In laboratories across America they are at work with fruit flies, mice, and other forms of animal life, experimenting to discover how the limits of our species can be lengthened or even eliminated.

For most of us, however, the more important question must be the desirability of life extension. Do we really want to live to 150? Or 500? Or forever, on this earth?

Speaking for myself, I am surprised and happy to have reached this new year of 2002. When you consider all the threats to human life, my arriving at 2002 is no mean feat. My instinct is to thank God, my parents, my country, members of my extended family, friends, and many others for making it possible for me to see the second year of the new millennium.

Those who dream about the fountain of longevity seem ignorant of what later life is like for large numbers of Americans right now. In this country of affluence unsurpassed in history, many lack enough money for their basic needs. Using the official federal poverty rate, the United States Census Bureau counts 5.6 million people over age 65 as poor or near-poor.

Also elders galore receive sub-par care in hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions; various forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s threaten the brain power of many.

In the conditions of contemporary life, should anyone wish to live to be 100, much less 150? I readily grant the exceptions to my attitudes. One of my family’s old friends recently celebrated her 100th birthday and, I rejoice to say, continues to flourish. She types her own letters and stays in vital touch with family members and friends.

I am aware also of the Centenarian Study at Harvard in which other people over age 100 were shown to be thriving. As a society, however, we are not prepared for large numbers of people to live far beyond the average. We will have to make many changes in both values and societal arrangements before we are ready for a longevity revolution.

Meantime, and for the foreseeable future, I recommend my philosopher  friend Harry Moody’s “culture of finitude.” By this he means the acceptance of limits that are built into the human condition. He dismisses as nonsense the modish view that “we can be anything we want to be.” Life remains fragile, Moody emphasizes, and we must accept vulnerability and resist the dream of lasting forever.

Some scientists have the wisdom to remind us that the human body was not designed for indefinitely extended use. Jay Olshansky says that “we are living beyond our warranty period.” Our bodies are not perfect, he maintains, but “we are an incredible species and the things that go wrong are not our fault.”

I feel grateful to be around for this new year and to be quaffing a cup in celebration of its arrival. You won’t find me buying into longevity inflation any time soon. Nor will you see me swallowing the views of the so-called “anti-aging medicine” crowd. Rather, I rejoice in the gift of life right now and hope for future good years even if they do not come anywhere close to a total of 150.

Richard Griffin