I suspect the wisdom that can come with age (and I’m aware of Oscar Wilde’s quip that sometimes age comes alone), is the wisdom associated with loss. Namely how to live with loss, and not be so overwhelmed by it.

Not that one must grow old to know loss. Unfortunately. Many suffer and die too young. And we are aware, as our gaze lifts beyond these our safe antipodean shores, that many are dying due to war, famine, poverty, hate, fear, greed, and other preventable diseases.

The cross focuses our attention on inflicted, cruel suffering. The ones, like Jesus, who are hanging there. And the ones, like his mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Clopas, and the beloved disciple (in John’s Gospel) who watch below, pained and grieving.

Yet, here, in our land, loss is primarily associated with ill-health and dying, and as we grow older both become more common.

Loss of health often begins with simply no longer being able to do what we did in the past. Sometimes we ignore the signs of this, or cope with it by deliberately ignoring the signs of it, until a personal incident or an accident makes it inescapable. We need to learn to adapt to our increasing limitations, and we need people close to us to understand and help us with this.

I think the US presidential debate last year that saw Joe Biden, in a very public way, display his declining health, was both sad and sobering. We all need people we trust to honestly tell us when our capacity – mental or physical –begins to diminish, and then help us with the consequences.

Learning to live with limitations, and having trusted friends to help, is a path to wisdom. It is the companion to those great messages of “Just do it,” “Go for it, ”and “Yes, you can,” that we instil in our young.

As we age too it becomes more likely that we have experienced the ill-health and/or death of family members and friends. And although medical advances have changed many things, including the management of pain, we can often feel a great impotency to relieve or prevent suffering and/or death, and a great sense of loss upon death.

Some biblical scholars posit that all the post-resurrection appearance accounts in the gospels are stories spun over many decades as Jesus’ disciples sought to live with their grief, and live beyond their grief, in a way that embodied his grave-defying spirit. Note the tears and fears, not just the togetherness and epiphanies.

In our secular age when the old gods are blatantly no longer (if they ever were)in control, one of the collection of myths that we humans tell ourselves is that we control our destiny. We determine if we suffer and even when we die. We make our own future, and our own security. We tell ourselves these myths so to wrestle some control over the randomness and unpredictability of much of life and, as we grow old, we often learn to accept some of that randomness and unpredictability, and try to be at peace with it.

Living with randomness and unpredictability, but not being overwhelmed by it, is a path of wisdom.

Wealth often dovetails with security. And wealth can fluctuate no matter how hard we work or how well we manage money or invest. The bowling ball of fate can come to skittle us. It might be a Canterbury Earthquake, an Anniversary weekend flood, or a Trumpian “liberation day.” Wealth, like security, can be precarious.

This is the meaning of the Lukan parable (12:13-21) sometimes called “The Rich Fool.” But the main character in the story isn’t a fool. Neither is he greedy (which is Luke’s interpretation). Rather he is an industrious farmer who expands and grows his business, building up wealth for retirement – to relax, eat, drink, be merry. But then he suddenly dies.

The question for the farmer, is the same as it is for us: have we spent enough of our time doing what we’ve really wanted to, what is dearest to our heart, or have we spent our time primarily working for the security money brings? Or, put another way, are we ready to die, having lived the life we’ve wanted to?

This parable invites us to look at our fears – fears about security, loss, and dying– but not be overwhelmed by them. In the context of the Christian corpus, the parable is not suggesting that we cease all work so to relax, or cease to help others so to be merry. Rather the parable is using hyperbole in order that we learn to live with loss and not be so overwhelmed by it.

Peter Matheson, a retired professor and good friend of St Luke’s, died last week. Inone of his poems he wrote:

“We need not be afraid

though every day we battle with the fear

that life will slip us by

and death dismember those we love

before their time…

before the loneliness is stilled…”

Acknowledging fears, yet not being overwhelmed by them, is a pathway of wisdom. As is using poetry to express them.

None of us feel good when loss comes, nor do we feel particularly good at coping with it. There are no experts when it comes to loss or pain. We all struggle. Why all wish that “the bowling ball of fate” had rolled elsewhere.

On the other hand, and it is not a great consolation but it is a great truth, such suffering helps us when a younger generation look to us as they experience the varieties and vagaries of misfortune that life can bring. As we listen to their pain, stand beside them, cry with them, and try to console and help, we might realize we’ve learnt a thing or to. Things that have helped or haven’t helped us. Mostly though we’ve learnt to endure.

And if we are lucky, we’ve learnt that life is a gift. Health and wealth too are primarily gifts. We’ve learnt ways to manage and calm our fears, and not be overwhelmed by them. We’ve learnt to be thankful for whatever little or lot we have, and the blessings that come in sharing that little or lot. We’ve learnt that we are not alone. There are people beside us who we can risk trusting. We’ve learnt that a smile, a kindness, or a warm laugh can nourish our souls in a way that a bank account can’t. We’re learnt that popularity and possessions are fleeting, and love, with its offspring peace and joy, is forever.

And we’ve learnt that when the storms of loss, of grief and pain, blow our way, ripoff our leaves, and break our branches, these learnings (these gifts) can keep us rooted, enabling us to endure.

And this is the wisdom that can come with age.

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