Other Tigers, Other Christs

Middle-age is one of the little deaths we encounter on our journey through life. When is middle-age? People who get there always seem to move it back a few years. Someone has said that the trauma of middle-age consists of men of forty closing the doors to rooms that they will never go back to. There are, of course, many men of forty who rebel against that. They refuse to go through the dying. They discard their wives; they look for the company of younger women; they neglect their children; they become workaholics. They will try all kinds of ways to walk back into those rooms, not realizing, perhaps, that to continue to live with integrity they must close the door, and accept the little death. For many persons it requires a great burst of courage to be able to accept the reality of lost youth. All ye of middle-age, have courage!

The acceptance of aging with integrity also requires an extra burst of…