Eternity Bound: An Interview with Mike Shaughnessy on the grace of aging

NL: Mike, tell us about the genesis of your book, “Eternity Bound: Reflections on the Grace of Aging.” How did it come about?

Mike: It all started with COVID. Suddenly it became visible how many people were anxious and afraid of dying. They were asking questions about why this was happening and how they should respond. I don’t blame anybody for that reaction, but I said to myself: “We as Servants of the Word should not be afraid of dying.” So I gave a meditation to the brothers about the topic during a retreat, and that convinced me that I should lean more into this topic.

I felt the Lord inviting me to use my prayer and meditation time to write down some of those thoughts.

The book has five sections: first about getting older, then one on suffering, one on getting old, one on dying, and the last one on Resurrection. I put those thoughts on paper, first and foremost for my own brothers, but at some point I became convinced that it was meant for a larger audience. That is how the idea of book came about. One confirmation came in the form of a brother speaking to me, saying: “I think God is telling you to write a book!”

NL: What was your hope what the book should accomplish while you were putting it together.

Mike: The trigger was the Lord speaking to me through various circumstances. I witnessed my mother dying, and in the last few months of her life, her gaze would often wander during our conversation, and I realized she was already glancing into eternity. Our founder was going deaf, but often refused to put in his hearing aids: he was tired of the noise of the world and wanted to listen to a different voice.

So, I felt I was meant to help my readers understand what goes on as you get older; to alleviate their fears and to show them that what they experience is something normal, yes even good.

“What I experienced in this situation: I had to abandon my life completely to the doctors”

NL: You were in hospital with Guillain-Barré syndrome during COVID, and you recently had a heart operation. How has that affected you?

Mike: Those events changed me. The doctor told me that during Guillain-Barré I had had respiratory heart failure and needed to be resuscitated. During my heart operation, they not only cut me open, but they took out my heart, stopped it to operate on it, and then had to restart it. What I experienced in this situation: I had to abandon my life completely to the doctors. I hope that helps me abandon myself more fully to God as well, especially as I am aging.

NL: In closing, please tell us a bit about your role in this area for the Servants of the Word brothers.

Mike: A few years ago, we realized that our own brothers were getting older too and we needed to prepare for that phase of life. The elders asked me to study the area and make recommendations. This spans such practical questions as what houses will actually work for impaired brothers to live, how we will care for those brothers in need of ongoing attention, all the way to spiritual questions such as what virtues we will need to cultivate in order to negotiate aging well. I am not making decisions, I am simply a catalyst who asks poignant questions. And I hope that will help us as a brotherhood to age and die well.

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This interview with Mike Shaughnessy by © 2024 Servants of the Word highlights an important area of the need for a wholistic approach that includes spiritual wisdom, pastoral guidance, and practical care and support for people in every stage of life – including the last stage of aging and death.  

Mike Shaughnesy’s book provides an excellent introduction towards gaining insight and strategy for mobilizing family members, small groups, churches, and communities to do their part in building up the body of Christ and serving others with grace, love, and respect. The book is available at Amazon.

Top image credit: Courtesy of the Servants of the Word.