Thoughts on Aging

I'm another year older today, a milestone year for me. My first milestone year was 25, that was so because I was so wild and had done so much, and surviving combat, that I was surprised to have reached that age. The second milestone was 33, that I saw as a turning point, that I should diminish the sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, and get serious about working. The party was off the charts, to enter a new era. Now, I'm reading a book by Jesuit James Martin, "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, and in a chapter, this poem written by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, on aging gracefully. I pray my aging is graceful.

When the signs of age begin to mark my body
(and still more when they touch my mind);
when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off
strikes from without or is born within me;
when the painful moment comes
in which I suddenly awaken
to the fact that I am ill or growing old;
and above all at that last moment
when I feel I am losing hold of myself
and am absolutely passive within the hands
of the great unknown forces that have formed me;
in all those dark moments, O God,
grant that I may understand that it is you
(provided only 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.