The shock usually comes when a photographer hands over a newly minted ID, and the face that gazing back appears alien. I have a zero-tolerance policy for this experience: it is not ego; it is a jolt of reality, and we do well to pay attention to it rather than deny it.

What troubles many in their advancing years is not the reflection of aging; it is the speed at which the change has occurred. Ten years ago is a time that feels within touching distance, yet the body and the calendar do not agree. Researchers have long known that time speeds by as we grow older, at least in part because the world has become more routine and the days slip by unnoticed. While this helps to explain the experience, it does little to ease the shock when the mirror calls the question without mercy.

Mirrors, after all, are not nuanced. They do not coddle, they do not negotiate, they do not recall our youthful selves at thirty-five. They report on the world as they see it, and sometimes their candor is brutal, even as our inner lives remain vigorous, curious, and intent on making new plans. I know why many of us now walk by a reflective window as if it were a cold puddle to be avoided.

There is also a social component to this shock, one that is rarely named. We idolize youth to a level of religious fervor and view aging as a gradual failure to maintain our appearance. When a face becomes suddenly unrecognizable, it is not just wrinkles but a litany of judgments accumulated through decades of advertising and casual ridicule. The shock is partly individual and partly learned.

I also resist the urge to treat this moment as a problem to be solved through forced solutions and quick fixes. While dyeing my hair or adjusting my lighting or finding a more benevolent camera filter can be pleasant pastimes, they do not address the underlying question: How did life suddenly speed up without ever asking permission? The face is not the problem; it is the feeling of being left behind as time quietly rearranges our priorities while we were busy paying bills and raising children.

There is a certain gallows humor to it all, if one is willing to look at it askew. The same impatience that made waiting in line to buy a movie ticket a complete waste of life now makes me feel as if decades are passing while I wait for a dentist appointment. The joke is on us: we were never promised a gradual reveal. I laugh at this to keep it from becoming bitter.

I find solace in focusing on what I have gained rather than what I have lost. Judgment becomes more refined, compassion more expansive, and certain fears lose their grip on my psyche. None of this is reflected in my face or my identification photo, but it is as real as the lines on my eyes and far more useful as I try to figure out how to spend a morning.

The best course of action, I believe, is neither mirror worship nor mirror avoidance. It’s learning how to look and how not to look, how to choose the mirrors of memory, work done, love given, and survival of error. Time will go on at its own odd pace, but we can meet it with open eyes, a little wit, and the determination not to be defined in any unflattering way.

EVER wondered why some crazy thoughts would just enter our mind and it would just be a matter of time before we fall into sin? And this despite our desire to be good?

The quick answer to that question is because we are not truly in love. Instead of thinking of the others, of what good we can do for the others, first with God and then with everybody else, we would just be thinking of ourselves, or worse, thinking of nothing and just allowing ourselves to drift wherever the condition of our body and the things around us would bring us.

We really should learn how to love all the time, because without it, we would just be giving an opening to our weaknesses and the many temptations around to dominate us. What is worse is when these weaknesses and temptations have already made a foothold in our system because we are doing nothing with respect to loving which is what is proper to us.
When we notice that we are feeling dry and passive, it is a sure sign that we are not in love. Of course, there are also times when we feel hot and driven but still not in love, that is, true love, because what stir our passions are our egoistic urges. It’s not genuine love. It’s fake love.

When we are truly in love, we would always be thinking of the others, of what good we can do for them. We would be willing to serve them, to understand them and to forgive them whenever some mistakes are committed.

We need to look closely at the example of Christ who is the very personification of love and who, by the way, is the pattern of our humanity. We are supposed to be like him since we have been created in God’s image and likeness, and endowed with the proper powers, like our intelligence and will, plus God’s grace in the first place, so that we can enter into nothing less than a true communion with God and with the others. That’s how true love works.

Christ precisely was always thinking of all of us, telling us how to distinguish between good and evil, truth and falsehood. He did a lot of good to others, performing some miraculous healings. Ultimately, he bore all our sins by offering his life. And as the gospel tells us, there is no greater love than he offers his life for his friends. (cfr. Jn 15,13)

This is how we should train ourselves in loving. It will take time and effort, but we are assured already that we can have it as long as we stick and cling to Christ no matter what happens along the way. This way, we would be protected from our own weaknesses and the many temptations around.

And when can we say that we are truly in love with the love of God for us? I guess the answer can be derived from what Christ himself told us clearly.

And that’s nothing other than when we can manage, with God’s grace, to love not only our neighbor, but also our enemy. Of course, it is loving with the love of God as shown to us by Christ himself who bore all our sins by offering his life on the cross.

Yes, let’s train ourselves to be truly in love, thinking of God and of everybody else, thinking of what good we can do for them, which in the end is a matter of giving our whole selves, including our very own life, to God and to everybody!