Fire in the Soul: A Prayer Book for the Later Years
Copyright © 2000 by Richard Lyon Morgan
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Cover Design: Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morgan, Richard Lyon, 1929–
Fire in the soul: a prayer book for the later years / Richard L.
Morgan.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8358-0879-3
1. Aged—Prayer-books and devotions—English. I. Title.
BV4580.M569 2000
242’.85—dc21 99-34605
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
In memory of my mother,
Margaret Lyon Morgan (1901–67),
who first taught me to pray,
and whose life was a prayer for her children.
Her death was an answer to our prayers
that God would send angels to take her home.
Other Books by Richard Lyon Morgan
At the Edge of Life: Conversations When Death Is Near
No Act of Love Is Ever Wasted:
The Spirituality of Caring for Persons with Dementia
Pilgrimage into the Last Third of Life:
7 Gateways to Spiritual Growth
Remembering Your Story:
A Guide to Spiritual Autobiography
Settling In: My First Year in a Retirement Community
Contents
I. Discerning God’s Call at Retirement
II. Moving to Deeper Contemplation
III. Accepting Our Aging
IV. Discerning the Meaning of Our Stories
V. Mentoring the Next Generations
VI. Facing Loss and Death
VII. Redeeming Suffering
Index of Prayers
List of Authors
Notes and Permissions
My life is an instant,
An hour which passes by;
My life is a moment
Which I have no power to stay.
You know, O my God,
That to love you here on earth
I have only today.
—Thérèse of Lisieux, 1873–97
Fire in the Soul: A Prayer Book for the Later Years arrived on my desk for review at a time when I was experiencing a particularly severe “dark night of the soul”regarding my own aging and the aging of society in general. My struggle for faith in the context of physical decline had come to a peak very suddenly. Within the course of the previous week two older women friends had died lonely and emotionally unresolved deaths. In addition, three of my aged patients—all without advance directives—had been placed in long-term care facilities, to be kept barely alive on life-support technology. Just one—the only “success”of the week—made it into a hospice program. I was feeling like a total failure as a health-care provider and as a friend. In addition, I was struggling with my own aging, asking myself, “How will I end up—a childless woman with no living relatives and a husband whose own father died suddenly at forty-four? Who will take care of me if Ron dies before I do?”The darkest realization was that if I survive my husband there is no one who is required to bury me! These were heavy ruminations, very unlike my usual optimism about life in the later— and frailer—years.
The following afternoon Ron and I went to the funeral home to attend the wake of one of the women. To my great grief we were the only mourners present. I was devastated that a life could come to such a level of disconnection from the human community. I wondered darkly if anyone would bother coming to the funeral home to visit me when I die. The question haunted me throughout the rest of the day and into the evening. My sleep was fitful and ended at 3:00 a.m. Unable to sleep or even relax, I told myself, “You might as well get up and do something useful. Read Dick Morgan’s book and start writing the foreword for it.”What an incredible blessing this middle-of-the-night decision was. (Perhaps my faithful old guardian angel, Paula, nudged me out of my disturbing thoughts to provide me with the solace of this prayer book.) It is just what I—at fifty-two—needed. And it will continue to be just what I need if I make it to one hundred two!
Fire in the Soul is based on Richard Morgan’s belief that “In a person’s later years, the life of prayer is not a luxury; it is an imperative priority . . . the one thing necessary,”a belief affirmed by his own experience of having lived seventy years. His reflection on his own and others’ aging process is the source of his strong conviction that we face seven major developmental tasks as we progress from being “young old”to “mature old”to the “oldest old.”These tasks range from discovering God’s call at retirement, to redeeming our suffering during times of frailty and pain, to finally facing our losses and the nearness of death. The honest and potent prayers—his own and others—“fit”each