Words that might have been addressed directly to this old person:
In the Christian East… we love old age because we think that it is made for praying. When one is old, and feels the nearness of God across the increasingly transparent surface of biological life, one becomes in consciousness a child, returned to the Father, made light in spirit by the nearness of death, transparent to another kind of light.
A civilization in which one no longer prays is a civilization in which old age has no meaning. People walk backward towards death, pretending to be young. It’s an agonizing spectacle, because a wonderful possibility is offered – a journey towards ultimate relinquishment – and it is not taken advantage of.