Joan Chittister's Legacy

This article journal is from: The Gift of Years by Joan Chittister. In the past, we often hear of people who wanted their name to be remembered throughout history. Whether it be a Roman gladiator, a foreign ruler, or a philosopher, many just wanted their name to be known for all of time. They believed that they left a legacy if their names went down in history. One of the most painful things is that there are graves of unknown soldiers or unclaimed bodies (Chittister 215). She explains that it is not the death, but rather that we have no way of knowing what legacy that the person left behind. In modern times, a legacy does not mean what it meant in the past. In modern times, leaving a legacy is often thought of as leaving physical items or

It mainly discusses our lives from seventy to ninety. It goes on to say how those in their twilight years can be full of life and happy, however we will all slow down before death. As we age, we approach a space between Earth and eternity, and begin to dwell more in eternity. Often times this is in an end of life care facility: a hospital, nursing home, etc. At this point in our lives we are at our wisest. We have this wealth of knowledge we have accumulated throughout our lives and we now start to understand more things in life. Personally, I think this is true since wisdom comes with age. Additionally, there would seem to be more time in the day since they would have very few responsibilities. Slowly, the things we care about begin to slip our minds and turn to nothingness. “We gave our lives to such things once and now can hardly remember what they were anymore” (Chittister 220). I found this quote very deep. To me this is saying to not fret over the little things in life. What seems like a big deal now, may truly be a small deal. The article goes on to say that we dedicated our lives to these things, but we now know many of these things are little things and are at peace with this