Today’s Life-Line is:

The second half of life is a summons to the life of the spirit, namely, to ask, and answer for ourselves, uniquely, separately, what matters most. When we resist the many deaths asked of us, we resist the summons into larger life. When we resist engaging our fears in service to growth, we abrogate the will of the gods. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said it best when he asserted that our task is to be defeated by ever-larger things. While the youthful ego can scarcely countenance defeat, the mature, second-half-of-life person knows that life is a series of continuing defeats, especially for the delusions of ego sovereignty. To be defeated by ever-larger things is indeed our task, for that means that we are growing, growing, growing.

~ James Hollis