The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost

A quick google search results in the following definition for the somewhat antiquated idiom of a certain age: “not yet old but no longer young.” I can certainly testify to the “no longer young” part. And I choose to remain in denial about the “not yet old.”
The famed developmental psychologist Erik Erikson taught us that every life transition has its own challenge, and the challenge of old age is to achieve a level of integrity, the sense that in spite of all the sins of the past one can look back and say, I did some good, I’m OK. If not achieved, Erikson added, the result is despair, which we more familiarly experience as deep depression.

No one has offered a more poignant cinematic example of the importance of integrity during the closing years of life than Steven Spielberg in the opening and closing scenes of his Oscar-winning World War II epic, Saving Private Ryan. In the first part of the scene, which opens the movie, Private Ryan is now “of a certain age” and has returned to Normandy to find the grave of Captain John Miller, who lost his life in the mission to save him. Spielberg plays out the scene for maximum effect: We see the elderly Ryan advancing toward the cemetery, his wife a step or two behind—it is his pilgrimage, after all, and she defers to him in this moment of truth. Behind them are their adult children and grandchildren, the younger of whom indicate no awareness of the import of what is taking place. The camera pans the thousands of stone markers, bare crosses and Stars of David, otherwise identical save for the names of the fallen soldiers. Ryan finds the captain’s grave and, weeping, drops to his knees. The scene then shifts to Omaha beach and the Normandy invasion, followed by the titular search, which takes up the bulk of the story. Mission completed, the movie returns to the aged Ryan kneeling at Captain Miller’s grave. He rises, turns to his wife, and implores her in words that have no doubt defined his life mission: Tell me I’m a good man.Tell me that I lived a good life, one worthy of this man dying for me. Assured that it is so, Ryan turns again toward the grave, straightens himself to attention, and salutes the man who saved him. And the movie closes.
I have never been able to describe that scene with dry eyes. Can you imagine reaching the closing years of your life and wondering if you have lived in a manner worthy of another man’s giving his life for you?

I am glad that any claim to integrity that I might deserve will not be measured against the value of someone dying for me. I need only repent for a life of self-obsession, self-absorption, careless insensitivities, and a multitude of poor decisions (and a few godawful ones), with the occasional good deed thrown in to keep things somewhat in balance. Frankly, that’s enough of a burden to carry, and my prayer is that I have enough years left to make up for the sins of the first seventy.

At a time in our history when truth appears to be under assault, it’s good to know that we can still look upon our own life experiences, apply wisdom and reason to the best of our ability, and accept the result of that inquiry with some measure of confidence. In that spirit, I offer my four truths of personal growth, and I hope that they align, at least in broad strokes, with some of your own experiences, wisdom, and reason.

The Four Truths
1. We all have “stuff,” broadly defined as the attitudes and behaviors that we inherited through our family of origin that get in the way of our full development as healthy persons (spiritually, physically, relationally, socially, etc.).

2. We all tend to deny that we have “stuff”—or at least we deny some of it, particularly the more disreputable manifestations of what we’ve inherited. Our “stuff” can be embarrassing—it might include racial, ethnic, and religious prejudices, for example, or negative patterns of interpersonal relations, or unhealthy values resulting from poor role modeling.

3. The first step on the path to wellness—the path to more fully being the persons we are called to be—is the acceptance of those first two truths and the subsequent willingness to confront our “stuff.”

4. Each successive step involves the ongoing commitment to notice our “stuff” when it arises and to make a more intentional response to it. Noticing one’s “stuff” is a habit that can be developed, like all habits, through practice. My personal experience with this is that it is a lifelong struggle; however, again like all habits, it gets easier over time.

I can distinctly remember an incident of my own family-inherited “stuff” of anti-Semitism becoming present to me when I was in my thirties. It was in the form of an instinctive negative judgment on my part, and I was confronted immediately with the incongruity of my response (it had nothing to do with the specific situation at hand, only about the religion and ethnicity of the person involved), and, sometime later, with the horrific wrongfulness of it. How many times before then had I not noticed those instinctive negative judgments?

I have learned through many life experiences that I am perfectly capable of creating my own “stuff.” I can be hurtful, inconsiderate, and self-absorbed, entirely independent of any negative learnings from childhood. I can create plenty of mischief all by myself without holding on to the “stuff” I inherited, and I most assuredly don’t need to pass that inheritance—or my own home-grown mischief—on to others. May the “stuff” of my family of origin die with me, and may the good that I inherited—and there was much of that—expand and be shared.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . a time to tear down and a time to build.”
-Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 3

In the early morning of March 6, 1966, an explosion rocked O’Connell Street, the main thoroughfare of Dublin. The target of the explosion—an act of destructive desecration or patriotic fervor, depending upon one’s point of view—was a 134-foot tall pillar, capped by a statue of Lord Horatio Nelson, vice admiral of the British navy. The pillar stood in the center of O’Connell Street for over a century and a half, erected when Ireland was an unwilling, subjugated member of the United Kingdom. Significantly, it was erected shortly after an unsuccessful 1798 uprising against British domination, no doubt to intimidate the Irish with the overwhelming power of the Crown.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of Irish history knows that for centuries Ireland was subjected to British rule; it was not until 1949 that it achieved independence and was able to take its place among the nations of the world. But in spite of that independence, the monument to Lord Nelson, a symbol of British oppression, continued to maintain its position of prominence in the center of the capital, a daily reminder of the subjugation the Irish had fought so hard to overcome.

Not everyone in Dublin wanted the statue removed. It was, after all, quite monumental, an impressive piece of architecture and a landmark in the city. For many of the residents, it was a symbol of a painful past, but for others it was more of a cultural and historical tribute to the long, entangled Anglo/Irish heritage of Dublin. There were many who were content to let it stay, suggesting that those offended should just get over it. As it happened, “those offended” took matters into their own hands and brought the statue down in the dark of night. There were no casualties; pains were taken to ensure that its destruction would take place when the streets were empty. No one was ever prosecuted for the crime.

I remember reading about the event in the local Dallas press a day or two after it occurred. I was a college freshman at the time, and a self-taught student of history (and a person of Irish ancestry), so I rounded up my buddies for a night of celebration. Truth be told, my buddies were game to celebrate anything so long as it involved beer, and although most had never heard of Nelson’s pillar nor cared about its history, they readily joined me in an evening of revelry.

Nelson’s pillar had to go. Its presence in the middle of O’Connell Street was an affront to every Irish man and woman who had yearned for political freedom and basic civil and religious rights throughout the many centuries of British domination. Likewise, in our own country, the statues of Confederate generals and other monuments of the Confederacy must go; they too stand as insulting, intimidating reminders of oppression—of hundreds of years of slavery, lynchings, and segregation. Can a people truly be free when the symbols of their oppression are staring down at them daily in the centers of their towns?

My adopted city of Dallas, which has its own share of Confederate statues and other reminders of its segregated past, is responding to the challenge with commendable maturity and thoroughness. Through the leadership of a progressive mayor and city council, the remnants of our Confederate ties are being removed, carefully and without incident. The city appears to have come together as one and proclaimed an end to the memorializing of oppression, recognizing, quoting Ecclesiastes, that there is both a time to build and a time to tear down.