| 10. Penance A Personal Note from the Artist |
This is the Stage where we pay for the sins of our youth.
Some of us pay physically, some of us pay spiritually. There’s
that famous scene from “The Godfather, Part III” when
Michael Corleone, as an old man, sits reflecting all alone in the
courtyard, then collapses. He was paying spiritual penance.
But for this woman in the drawing, her penance is physical.
We see the ravages of a lifetime of doing who-knows-what
finally wreaking havoc on her body. Struggling to sit upright
and perhaps shuffle slowly to the restroom, the back of her
hospital gown opens like a curtain in a play to reveal a tattoo
from many decades before. It declares “Wild Thang”.
When we are young, many of us—like the arrogant, striding girl
in the previous Stage 9, "Reflection", do not realize that older
people were once as young and active as we. Most young
people just can’t embrace the Truth of the passage of time and
what it does to us. They think that life will always be like it is
now. They never see the changes coming until they have
already come. They naively believe, saturated in youthful
blessings, that they will never look like that, walk that way, act
that way. Neither did the woman sitting on the hospital bed in
the picture.
Some of us pay physically, some of us pay spiritually. There’s
that famous scene from “The Godfather, Part III” when
Michael Corleone, as an old man, sits reflecting all alone in the
courtyard, then collapses. He was paying spiritual penance.
But for this woman in the drawing, her penance is physical.
We see the ravages of a lifetime of doing who-knows-what
finally wreaking havoc on her body. Struggling to sit upright
and perhaps shuffle slowly to the restroom, the back of her
hospital gown opens like a curtain in a play to reveal a tattoo
from many decades before. It declares “Wild Thang”.
When we are young, many of us—like the arrogant, striding girl
in the previous Stage 9, "Reflection", do not realize that older
people were once as young and active as we. Most young
people just can’t embrace the Truth of the passage of time and
what it does to us. They think that life will always be like it is
now. They never see the changes coming until they have
already come. They naively believe, saturated in youthful
blessings, that they will never look like that, walk that way, act
that way. Neither did the woman sitting on the hospital bed in
the picture.
The old woman’s tattoo reveals that she, too, was once a wild, rebellious 16-year-old, full of life and energy
and passion. She, too, did adventurous things and worried her parents sick. This old, withering woman in a
fragile body was once just like you, if you are a teenager or twenty-something. She laughed at life and
scoffed at ever becoming like those old people she saw shuffling down the sidewalk. But Life dragged her
kicking and screaming against her will to do just that. And now here she is on the Altar of Aging to do
penance. The eternal fountain of youth has dried up.
The little girl leaning gloomily on the bed, again, represents the little child in each of us who never grows up.
She is now despondent with the realization that she may never get to play again. There are too many serious
adult concerns now that cannot be ignored. The old woman, once frivolous and accommodating in her youth,
has now been forced to put away her inner child.
The man we partially see sitting in the chair to the right may be a son, a husband, an old lover…or maybe just
a friend or relative. He is there to accompany the old woman on this unwelcome journey. Many of us turn to
such a person for a dramatic supporting role on the various Stages of Life.
Friends are a valuable commodity as we journey. But sometimes, the unseen, unchanging child within us
could help us as much as the companionship of a friend. We too often turn our backs on that child until
finally, it is too late for them to be our companion at all. We are too consumed with unraveling the tangles we
have woven into our lives from bad choices. It is at such a time we sometimes find ourselves at this Stage of
Life. Penance.
| Actual Image Size: 16”x 20” |
| Copyright Bruce Carnahan All Rights Reserved |
12 Stages of LifeTM
| 10. PENANCE |
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