In the preface to his book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, Parker Palmer writes: Every day, I get closer to the brink of everything. We’re all headed that way, of course, even when we’re young, though most of us are too busy with Important Matters to ponder our mortality. But when a serious illness or accident strikes, or someone dear to us dies—or we go to the class reunion and wonder who all those old people are—it becomes harder to ignore the drop-off that lies just over the edge of our lives. 

Over the next few weeks, we will turn to wisdom ancient and contemporary and in between to take stock of and look out from the place in life we currently find ourselves and ponder what the future might hold.