Love
by John C. Morgan
Only old people with wrinkles and arthritis know about love.
It’s all worth saving
when everything is gone.Grown taut by disappointment,
the body awaits the end
and can no longer melt under lover’s heat. Only dying persons find each day
a lifetime,
for that is all that’s worth finding.Facing death makes love everything.
John Crossley Morgan, “Love,” found in Pilgrimage into the Last Third of Life.
There is something lovely about the way Morgan gently moves us to the realization that “facing death makes love everything.” As he begins,
It’s all worth saving
when everything is gone.
When everything else is gone, only dying persons find each day a lifetime of all that’s worth finding.
Morgan recurs a theme found in Madaleine L’Engle’s enchanting poem, To A Long Loved Love.
We who have known the touch of flesh and the shape of bones…
What passion knowledge of tried flesh still yields,
What joy and comfort these familiar rooms.
What have you found that is worth finding, worth saving? Be sure to remember. Be sure to share that with your long loved love. And may you continually go to the ancient source of renewing love in the One who made us for Himself.
Curriculum of the Spiritual Life 
This has been a very good read, Rusty. 🙂
It is so true that we need to let go of so many things we have been used to as we grow older. As our body more and more ‘disappears’, our inner man wants to grow instead. Maybe, this inner growth into the kingdom of God is one of the lessons aging and facing death teach us. I was just reminded of the following Scripture as I would reflect on the worth of true love, of wisdom that survives this age, and of the truth (i.e. Jesus Christ) that is eternal.
10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?
12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. (Ps 90:12 ESV)
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Thanks for your note Susanne. I appreciate your reference to Ps 90 – a Psalm attributed to Moses and is one of the oldest Psalms in the Psalter – which has so much to say to us at any stage of our lives. Verse 12 in particular becomes a recurrent prayer; may we therefore gain a heart of wisdom. Grace to you.
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Amen to your prayer, Rusty. Grace and peace to you, too.
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The quotation should read, “(Ps 90:10-15 ESV) instead. I was looking up verse 12 only, but then its context spoke to me, too. 😉
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