Midlife Archives - Bob on Books

Renaissance, Susan Fish. Brewster, MA: Raven | Paraclete Press, 2023.

Summary: Approaching fifty, Elizabeth Fane suddenly leaves work she loves as an executive director of a non-profit and a family that has been her life, to work in the gardens of a convent in Florence, Italy.

Elizabeth Fane came across these words in a book of Dante, found in a church rummage sale:

“Midway on life’s journey I found myself alone in a dark wood where the right way was lost.”

Little did Liz realize that within a few months, she would be living these words. She was approaching fifty with a husband she loved and three grown up sons leaving home. She served as executive director of a non-profit, a job she loved and was good at. Then came the day an associate mentions something about her family that rocks her world because it was something she didn’t know.

She steps away from her work and makes plans to go to Italy, leaving family behind. She goes, not as a tourist but a garden volunteer at a convent in Florence, Italy. Florence, the heart of the Renaissance. Dante’s house. The Accademia and the Uffizi. The works of Caravaggio, da Vinci, and Michelangelo. Ancient churches, bustling markets, a glorious countryside.

Yet her life seems a dark wood. But she slowly opens up to the good food, the prayers in a grotto, conversations with Honey and Cecy and a painting of Mary, alone, that Cecy nicknames Our Lady of Perpetual Constipation. She works with the convent gardener who teaches her the work of pruning olive trees. He begins each day drinking a cup of olive oil, giving thanks both to God and the olive grove. Mornings are spent pruning, afternoons by gathering pruned branches. But what is being pruned in Liz?

Through most of the story, she keeps her secret to herself, only sharing it late in the story with Honey, who sees things differently than she. A subsequent betrayal by an old high school friend she encountered on a tour forces her to example how the secret kept from her by her husband and son affected her–not only how they saw her, but also the identity that she had constructed.

There is that painting of Mary, that hangs in her room. Not Mary with child. Not the Pieta, Mary holding her dead son. Mary alone. Mary who has said “let it be unto me…” and Mary whose own heart has been pierced with a sword. Was Mary still saying “let it be unto me”? Could Liz? What would that mean for how she saw her husband? Her son? Herself?

Susan Fish tells the story of a woman seeking her own renaissance, trying to find her way through a dark would where all the familiar trail blazes are missing. Liz’s search is juxtaposed with the beauties of Florence and it’s countryside. Yet her healing comes not from the beauties of the place but as she comes to a place of vulnerable, raw honesty, facing her anger that kept her from going to the English church, and the false self she projected to family and even herself. A profound story of a mid-life renaissance.

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

Becoming Sage, Michelle Van Loon. Chicago: Moody Press, 2020.

Summary: An exploration of what Christian growth looks like in the second half of life.

One of the dirty little secrets of Christian discipleship is that most of the resources that have been developed focus around the early years of the Christian life, and most around the issues of the first half of life. What is a Christian to do who lives beyond his or her forties?

Michelle Van Loon proposes in this book that we move from what a Christian believes and does to growing in the wisdom won of hard life experiences, in other words becoming sage. Drawing on the work of Hagberg and Guelich, she argues that most church discipleship programs address the first three of six stages of Christian growth: 1. “God I believe in you”; 2. “God I belong to you.”; and 3. “God, I’m working for you.” At mid-life, we often hit the wall and all the earlier answers seem to stop working. She calls this “God where are you? I’m alone in the dark.” We face loss and we move from certainty to humility. If we persevere, we move into Stage 5 where we pass along what we’ve given, and Stage 6 as we prepare for and move toward the conclusion of our lives (“Lord, I’m coming home”).

Van Loon explores the process of growing sage through our changing relationship with the church and how we deal with wounds and disappointments. She describes our changing relationships with family and friendships that fade or endure and new ones that develop.

She explores that changes that inevitably happen to us bodily. She observes:

Becoming sage means growing into the tension of wasting away and being renewed. It is not an either/or proposition, but both/and. As unlovely as the notion of suffering and decay are, Paul tells us here that eternal glory is being created through them.

Change happens with our money and our intangible treasures as well. We come to terms that we can’t take anything with us, and need to think how we leave these things behind well.

One of the most perceptive chapters is on the “U” curve of happiness. She discusses acedia (often known as the “noonday demon”), a kind of weary sadness that comes over many in midlife. Van Loon doesn’t have simple answers for this but rather the persevering faith that allows Christ to deconstruct and transform our relationship with Him.

She describes the movement from doing to being, from being “world changers” with the hubris this carries to those who by quiet faithfulness heal the world. We learn to impart what we learn and begin to prepare for facing our own home-going, our own death.

People hitting midlife are leaving the church. Some decide that when the answers they learned in their early years as Christians don’t work or satisfy, that there is nothing there, particularly when the church offers nothing, no vision of the second half of life. The issues Van Loon discusses often aren’t discussed. How do we deal with the disappointments of the church itself. How do we come to terms with the bodily changes that remind us of our mortality? How do we fruitfully invest what we’ve earned and learned? How do we prepare to die well when no one talks about this? Van Loon breaks the conspiracy of silence and casts a rich vision of the second half of life, a vision of becoming sage, going deeper into Christ and Christ-likeness in a lifelong journey of discipleship.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.