cover image How Did I Get to Be 70 When I'm 35 Inside? Spiritual Surprises of Later Life

How Did I Get to Be 70 When I'm 35 Inside? Spiritual Surprises of Later Life

Linda Douty. Skylight Paths, $16.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-59473-297-3

Yiddish speakers often accompany the word emes with the hand over the heart to emphasize its meaning as "absolute, clear truth." Emes best describes Douty's third entry in her "How..." series (How Can I Let Go If I Don't Know I'm Holding On?). Douty, 65, a spiritual director, interviewed more than 50 elders ages 70 through 99; she rose above platitudes by asking about self-discovery, outside versus inside age, and the changing image of God. "These folks... kept giving me answers that I didn't expect," she writes. "Surprise," the operative word in the interviews, defines Douty's eight chapters, including surprising gifts, challenges, wisdom, the body, and the sacred. To be open to surprise, Douty notes, is to grow, not resist, and to nurture souls and skills. Although Douty quotes experts from Benedictine nun Joan Chittister to Jungian analyst James Hollis, this is not a how-to book: it is about ways old people have plowed through pain%E2%80%94the physical inseparable from the spiritual%E2%80%94toward "winnowed wisdom," paying homage to the holy in everything to leave a legacy of true love in something. (June)