Jonathan Aitken: I’m in my 80s and here’s what I’d tell Joe Biden

Don't succumb to this politicians' fantasy.

Jonathan Aitken

Jonathan is a former politician, and now a prison chaplain.

President Biden sits at a desk, holding his balled hands to his mouth.

Biden in the Oval Office, 2022.

The White House.

I am the same age as President Biden. So part of my heart went out to him as I watched his catastrophic confrontation with Donald Trump last week.

As we octogenarians know, or should know, our physical and mental faculties simply don’t work as well as they used to. If tested in the white heat of a Presidential debate, or at a multitude of far lower-level challenges, it is all too easy to slip, stumble or fall.

These human weaknesses have been almost unchanged for time immemorial. They were painfully if poignantly expressed some 2,500 years ago in the Psalms of David:

“The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years: yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.”

Modern optimists may try to argue with the ancient psalmist. In our 21st century era of vitamin pills, workouts in the gym, macrobiotic diets and intermittent fasting, we are all too willing to believe that we can postpone the arrival of the grim reaper or at least prolong our youthful vitality.

Politicians are particularly susceptible to the fantasy that they can stay on their best form into old age longer than anyone else. “Age shall not weary us” they whisper to themselves, citing elderly successes such as Winston Churchill who became Prime Minister in 1940 aged 67, leaving Downing Street at the age of 80; William Gladstone who formed his last administration when he was 82; or Ronald Reagan who rode off into the sunset aged 77.

There are many reasons why political leaders have a tendency to hold on to power beyond their sell by date. Their egos make them believe they are indispensable. Their courtiers, their staff and their appointees like to stay in power too. When the White House changes hands approximately 30,000 people lose their jobs, from mighty Cabinet Secretaries in Washington to humble rural postmasters in Hicksville. So there is a built-in bias for preserving the status quo, by fair means or by flattery.

What President Biden now needs is loving, personal advice from his nearest and dearest, and wise political advice from disinterested friends whose candour he really trusts. Will he get it?

My late wife, Elizabeth, was brave in giving what she called “frank notes” to all three of her husbands when she watched them perform on stage, on screen, or, in my case, in pulpits.

Her movie star spouses, Rex Harrison and Richard Harris, were not always pleased when her notes criticised them for forgetting their lines, failing to sound consonants, or dropping their voices at the end of sentences. I, too, was sometimes less than appreciative, but I always took Elizabeth’s advice. Would that Jill Biden might now imitate such similar Elizabethan candour.

In his perceptive article on this subject for Seen & Unseen, young Bishop Graham Tomlin (he’s about 20 years younger than me!) made excellent points about the calling of old age. To which I can cheerfully shout, as if I was still in the House of Commons: “Hear! Hear!”

For, since being ordained at 74, I have found enormous fulfilment in the calling of prison chaplaincy, pastoral care, and preaching. These are not to be compared to the fastest tracks in competitive careers like politicians or investment bankers. Yet they have brought me great joy and I hope they have sometimes helped my prisoners and parishioners.

The race is not always to be swift.

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Sport

20 August 2024

5 min read

What’s Simone Biles doing today?

How to live with winning and losing.

Julia Kendal

Juila is a writer and social justice advocate.

Simone's gold medal moment.

@simonebiles

I wonder about what Simone Biles is doing today. She is one of the many athletes whose Paris 2024 was about more than gold; it was about redemption. Now the Games are over, what happens to their restoration story?

The narrative about redemption seemed to dominate the headlines and linger in post-event interviews. Some Olympians came to the Games seeking it. Gymnast Rhys McClenaghan was tipped for gold in Tokyo 2020 but stumbled on the pommel horse, finishing in seventh place. In France, he climbed to the top of the podium.

Others completed a fall and rise within the two weeks themselves. Sprinter Jeremiah Azu had a faltering beginning to the Games, disqualified for a false start in the individual 100m heat. Just six days later he was clutching a bronze medal for the relay.

Then there are those like taekwondo athlete, Jade Jones, who also laboured for years and gave their all – but didn’t get the payoff that they sought. What does the story mean when it is unfulfilled? And when the Games are over, how do people live with winning and losing?

Into our messy, maybe frightening, sometimes ordinary, lives, we love a redemption story to brighten and neaten things up.

After years of professional procrastination, a few months ago I finally took the plunge and joined LinkedIn. An impressive feat, I know. It was driven by practicality; I was finishing a job as a climate policy advocate and making the leap into consultancy. But I’ve been fascinated to discover how people in my community, and millions of others, are sharing tender and vulnerable ideas and thoughts in this social workspace. They are coming with questions – what does success look like? How are you navigating your purpose in the day to day? What world do you want your children to inherit? – and gentle ideas about their answers.

People are asking about and reflecting on how to navigate winning, and losing, and living in the murky space in between.

This feels striking because one of the other prevalent stories many of us believe, maybe unconsciously, is that life will generally be good and any setbacks are the exception. Growing up in the Nineties the message seemed to be: the world is your oyster if you work for it. Put in the effort, and the losses will be few and the trajectory will be up.

But the last few years in particular – economic volatility, growing exposure of deep inequalities, the worsening climate crisis – hammer home that this is not reliably the case. No matter how much effort you put in, we rarely live through one type of season at a time. Joy and suffering co-exist. And amongst the highs and the lows, there is a whole lot of everyday living. Show up at the desk, the school gate, the supermarket.

Into our messy, maybe frightening, sometimes ordinary, lives, we love a redemption story to brighten and neaten things up.

The sting of winning or losing is softened when we stop ascribing all meaning to them, and instead cast them in the context of a wider story.

But part of the problem with many of the redemption tales we share is that they rely on the person themselves to deliver their own restoration. They’ve had (and are perhaps blamed for) a fall from grace, and now it’s up to them to find it within themselves – their physical, mental and emotional capacity – to achieve restoration. That’s a heavy weight to put on anyone’s shoulders (however broad they may be).

And any redemption gained is fleeting. Medal winners talk about ‘gold medal syndrome’: the post-competition feeling of depression, loneliness and emptiness. For those athletes who’ve now headed home after fulfilling a salvation arc, is the emotional dip going to be even steeper, harder?

Most of us won’t be Olympians, despite how expertly we discuss the diving scores every four years, but that sense of deflation after achieving a long-sought goal can be resonant. We’ve strived and risked ourselves for something, only to find the aftertaste is a bit flat. That new job is good but flawed. Winning that award doesn’t stop a rejection landing in the inbox the next day. The house renovations are already showing cracks. Winning and losing are both transient. A redemption made ourselves rarely satisfies or lasts.

The sting of winning or losing is softened when we stop ascribing all meaning to them, and instead cast them in the context of a wider story. One that goes further than a single person or moment – a birth, a podium, a bonus. Such a story can speak beyond our own lives to the core challenges we face in the world: fairness into a broken economic system; peace instead of violence in our communities; flourishing, not escalating environmental crises.

During my years of climate advocacy, I have sometimes envied colleagues working on more tightly defined topics with the possibility (only fulfilled through huge amounts of wisdom and graft, of course) of winning. Change a law, solve a problem. As the climate gets warmer and more unpredictable, it’s easy to have a sense that, at best, you are just making things a little less bad. The wins are in the context of a lot of disappointments, and a whole lot more grey space in between.

But by being able to root my day to day in a bigger story, I can move forward with hope. Understanding our lives as part of an even greater narrative – the story of this world that God loves and sustains and restores – saves us from the pressure and heartache of trying to redeem our own lives. Instead, we can live them – the wins, the losses, and all the mundane moments in between – in light of that bigger story.

Looking at the world through the lens of God’s redemption story helps us to stay clear-sighted: celebrating the successes and not make them our whole world; naming the problems and still acting with hope and grit.

A redemption arc is a beautiful one. I want to hold onto that longing, but find it in a story that’s deeper, longer and richer than I can see. A story that lasts.