Insane for the Light, Ronald Rolheiser. Image (ISBN: 9780593736463) 2025.

Summary: The spiritual journey of our final years, learning not only how to relinquish one’s life but to give away one’s death.

On Saturday, I learned of the passing of an actor whose movies I watched as a young adult. She was eight years older than I am. This is not an uncommon experience when I read of the deaths of famous people, or the obituary page from my high school on Facebook. It reminds me that part of the business of this stage of my life is to live with intention and attention toward my death. How does God want to continue to form me in the way of Christ as my bodily and mental powers wane? And how may I live so that my life, and even my death, may be a gift to those I love?

There are not many guides for this journey. Many of the books about spirituality address our productive years and the transitions of midlife. But what about the years of autumn and winter? In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate the writing of Ronald Rolheiser in his books The Holy Longing and Sacred Fire. I discovered that this new book, Insane for the Light completes this trilogy. In the first, Rolheiser writes about our search for meaning. Then in the second, he speaks to how we give our lives away. Now, in an interesting turn of phrase, he writes about how we give our deaths away. Rolheiser observes:

“Giving our deaths away as a gift to our loved ones means that at some point in our lives, we need to stop focusing on our agenda and begin to focus on our obituary, on what kind of spirit we will leave behind.”

But what does that look like?

Rolheiser begins with anthropologies from aging, considering voices as diverse as Hindu mythology’s sannyasin to Germain Greer’s crone, Richard Rohr’s angry or holy old fools, and David Brooks’ call to scale the second mountain of meaning and love. Then he considers the challenge of transformation in aging. Instead of becoming the same person, only more so, he addresses seven transformations, all summarized in Jesus call to metanoia, the change of mind into creatures more like God. More like Christ. In the end, the image of Christ defenseless on the cross, submitting to death and giving his life, is our model. In our death, how we deal with helplessness, the loss of control are crucial. It is the experience of passivity. We may embrace or bitterly fight this, but if embraced, following Jesus in death is lifegiving to others.

But this journey is sometimes a journey through dark nights. Rolheiser draws upon the wisdom of St. john of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul. He offers wise counsel for how we live through such nights (pp. 80-82) that is worth the price of the book. He proposes that the purpose of the “dark night” is so that “God can flow into our lives and into this world purely, uncontaminated by human projection and self interest, because in our frustrating darkness we are helpless to control the experience.”

Then Rolheiser turns to the image of the “beggars hut.” In fact, that hut is the aging process. a kind of monastic existence with its own order of tasks. Carrying tension for the young. Offering prophecy to the world. Radiating God’s compassion. Rescuing God from narrowness. Blessing the young. Giving up on fear. Preparing for our move to a place beyond the illusion of self sufficiency. Making peace with those in our circle through the words “Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you,” and “I love you.” Rolheiser synthesizes Henri Nouwen’s ideas of how we give our deaths away into twelve invitations.

In his final chapters Rolheiser addresses his thoughts about the afterlife, including our communion with those who have died. Finally, he outlines St. John of the Cross’s paradigm of spiritual transformation. He includes examples of transformation through prayer and through service. His parting word comes from St. John’s advice:

“We all have made vows: to one another, to God, and to ourselves. John of the Cross simply advises that we stay within these vows and accept the times of disillusionment–and then love, others, maturity, and God will find us,”

It seems to me that the book’s central idea is that our aging is an invitation to die with Christ. What I find most attractive in this is that it suggests that old people can grow! We can be transformed by God through the aging process. We can mellow, become grateful, forgiving, hopeful, and childlike. Then we generously give away the remainder of our lives–and our deaths. And in our dying, we become “insane for the light” of God’s glory. I recall reading of my childhood pastor’s final words: “The glory, the glory!” To read these words was a gift, as is remembering them. He gave his death away to others.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.