Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 7th May 2023

Dear Friends,

’I have this thing’, sings Taylor Swift, ‘where I get older but just never wiser.’

I know the feeling. Having reached the grand old age of 49, I find myself repeating the same mistakes I made years ago. Still full of pride and anxiety. Still wondering what to do with my life.

So, I was heartened to read that Aristotle thought the age of 49 marks a milestone in human development, when we start to realise our full intellectual potential.

Funnily enough, Aristotle was 49 when he founded his Lyceum in Athens – a centre of learning where he developed the practical wisdom of his students. Perhaps the ‘wisdom begins at 49’ thing was just a bit of self-promotion.

However, he’s not the only thinker to attach significance to this age. Rudolf Steiner believed that we live in seven-year cycles, and that the period from 49 to 56 is one of growing wisdom, when we turn the experiences of the first part of life into a new level of self-mastery.

Either way, I’m suspicious of schools of thought that promise a particular moment of enlightenment or revelation. In my experience, wisdom comes and goes. There are times when things make sense, and times when they don’t. We should probably hold both experiences lightly. The certainty might be mistaken. The uncertainty might be full of meaning.

Maybe Taylor Swift is right to suspect that age and wisdom don’t always go hand-in-hand. But I think there’s a more positive way of seeing this.

In the words of Advices and Queries number 7: ‘Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys.’

Wisdom doesn’t begin at 49. It continues.

In Friendship
Jonathan Heawood

On behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (David Hitchin, Chris Lawson, Tim Pitt-Payne, Caroline Pybus, Theresa Samms, Nancy Wall)