A Conversation with Dale Hanson Bourke

Author of Second Calling: Finding Passion & Purpose for the Rest of Your Life

Q:         Millions of baby boomers are moving into their midlife and golden years.  How do you think this affects women in particular?

A:         It can be disconcerting, unsettling, even terrifying.  We are no longer in that part of life when we simply respond to parents, children, husbands, jobs, the PTA, and recycling schedules.  We are not spending every single minute trying to keep everyone else happy.  We are suddenly not so busy.  In fact, we might even be feeling a little lonely.  Where did all the noise and activity go?  Where are all the people who once need us?  One day, we realize we are facing down the gaping abyss known as the second half of life!

Q:         So what’s a midlife woman to do?  In a society dedicated to youth, isn’t aging about the worst thing that can happen to you?

A:         Well, we’ve all bought in to this myth in one way or another.  We moisturize, color, avoid carbohydrates, and embrace spandex.  Some of us are more successful than others at living in denial.  Yet if you are a Christian woman, as I am, and if you read the Bible, as I do, you may at some point begin to hear a whisper of hope in place of the voice of doom.  Instead of being all washed up, you are actually being baptized into a new life. 

Q:         So you are saying that becoming less physically attractive can a blessing instead

            of a curse?

A:         In God’s economy, the fact that we are becoming less physically attractive may be just the way he wants us.  God is mostly concerned with one aspect of us: our hearts.  He wants them strong, responsive, and enthusiastic, even if he has to wait until we are eighty and looking back fondly on the days of fine lines and wrinkles.  But I hope he doesn’t have to wait that long on me!

Q:         Then explain how midlife can be good for my heart!

A:         I believe God has a special purpose for women in the second half of life that is world-changing in its scope.  I truly believe that if we can understand what God is calling us to and can turn away from those voices calling us to stay attached to our youth, we will be given a power and purpose beyond anything we have experienced.  For me, it has been freeing and empowering to let go of the ambition and drive that fueled the first half of my life.

Q:         How did you respond when you realized that your life was changing? 

A:         About five years ago I took a job that was not a good fit.  But as someone who had always been an achiever, I refused to give up and kept trying to be a ‘fixer’ in a situation that was out of my control. I felt completely unprepared and frustrated.  Then 9-11 happened, stealing the life of a  friend and other acquaintances.  In a matter of months I was on antidepressants that made me anxious and insomnia set in with headaches and weight gain right behind. My doctor told me I needed to reduce the stress in my life but I wasn’t a quitter.  And I was also in denial.  I didn’t want to face the fact that I was in the wrong place and I was not succeeding.  Eventually I came crashing down physically, mentally and spiritually.  It left me feeling defeated, depressed, and old.

Q:         But you aren’t living in that depressed funk now, so what happened?

A:         At some point I started reading The Message, a fresh and poetic paraphrase of the Bible, and it began to work in my soul.  I realized that God wanted me, all of me.  I began a list in my journal, not of goals but of traits that I would like to develop.  So far, my list includes peaceful, wise, gracious, kind, open, loving, winsome, patient, thoughtful, and especially godly.  And I try to do what I am given with more commitment.  I am learning to enjoy the sacredness of the present that I missed before in the rush to move on to something else.  I have finally realized that my life is not about what I do but who I am.

Q:         Does this mean you’ve completely retired now?  No more travel or board

            meetings?

A:         I am extremely selective about the commitments I make these days.  And although I used to be skeptical when other women required time to “pray over” commitments and plans, I have made this my own policy.  Very unexpectedly, God has called me to become involved in educating people about the worldwide HIV/AIDS crisis.  So I spend much of my time writing, speaking and consulting in that area.  It’s something I never would have expected to be doing but God so clearly called me to it that I had to respond. 

            But I never want to be so busy that I don’t have time for a friend who has a need or time to really spend with God.

Q:         What do you think God wants for women entering the second half—or calling—of

            their lives?

A:         I think he wants us to spend the second half of our lives worrying less about what we do and more about who we become.  He wants to turn our lives upside down and use us in magnificent, unexpected, world-changing ways.  He is ready to mobilize an army of women who have unprecedented health, wealth and education.  Women aged forty and over make up more than half of the female population in the US.  He is calling us to step up to the challenge and to leave the past behind.  I, for one, am ready to hear the call.

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