We are moving into
an unprecedented time in the history of the US and many other parts
of the world, a time when there will be millions of people over the
age of 60 living on our planet. Most of human history we didn't live
past the age of 18. Only a century ago the average age we lived to
was 45. Now it is 76. Each year finds our life span increasing. How
will we live all those extra years? What will be the quality of our
lives? As the vast number of baby-boomers reach retirement age they
are looking more deeply into these important questions - questions
we wouldn't have asked 100 years ago.
This month we
explore aging in some of its myriad aspects. This is a passage most
of us will make. Together let us find ways to do it that lift this
phase of life to wondrous new heights!
The
great use of life
is to spend it on something that will outlast it.
William
James
“The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines.”
Plato
Several years ago I returned home from a trip to find a book on my coffee
table and a note. The note said, “this book reminds me of you.” The
name of the book was Two Old Women. Needless to say, I was a little
startled and curious. When Joan asked me what I was preaching on today, I
told her aging. Her reply was, “well that will bring out the crowds.”
Aging, talking about it, thinking about our own, is something we avoid.
Who wants to think about one's own demise? We can talk about life’s
journey, but we really want to stop talking and thinking about it when we
reach 55 or so. After that there is little allure about the rest of life.
Part of this is culture. From about the age of 16 we are separated by age.
We see few people who are not in our age group. Now this begins even
earlier. Children’s parties are for children, adults are not included.
We live in a culture that reveres youth. We worship youth and above all,
want to be thought of as young. We have industries built on this fact. We
also have lost the ideal of wisdom that comes only with age and deserves
respect. A parent asked me how you teach children to respect adults and
also protect them from strangers? Children learn respect from the models
of the adults around them. If we do not show respect for age, authority
acquired by age, wisdom acquired by age, why should they?
About ten years ago a woman spoke to me about her
feelings of depression, not being engaged by life. She went on to say,
“and please do not tell me to find another god damn hobby.” She was
65. I was perplexed. I really did not know what counsel to give her. I
realized as I asked others for help, few people knew how to respond. I
began to dig to find something I could give her. I came up with Jung’s
seven tasks of aging, which I found in the book, The Fountain of Age,
by Betty Friedan.
Ten years later, and there is still very little out there on aging,
specifically the years from 65 to 85. We still value youth over wisdom and
banish the old from our view. What treasure we are losing.
Jung talks about the physical cycle of life being one that moves from
birth to death naturally. Death is the natural goal. He then talks about
how we fight this process psychologically by clinging and climbing and
resisting the natural flow from birth to death. We give purpose, future,
meaning and value to youth. We see the end of life as meaningless. Fear
becomes a deterrent to life and then stands in the way of death.
We are forever only more or
less than we actually are. It is as if our consciousness had
somehow slipped from its natural foundations and no longer knew how to get
along on nature’s timing. It seems as though we are suffering from a
hubris of consciousness which fools us into believing that one’s time of
life is a mere illusion which can be altered according to one’s
desire…We grant goal and purpose to the ascent of life, why not to the
descent? The birth of a human being is pregnant with meaning, why not
death? For twenty years and more the growing man is being prepared for the
complete unfolding of his individual nature, why should not the older man
prepare himself twenty years and more for his death? Of course, with the
zenith one has obviously reached something—one is it and has it. But
what is attained with death? Oxford Book of Aging The Soul and Death, 1934, Carl Jung...
Jungians see age as a
paradigm shift. The first part of life has to do with ego, career, and
family development, the second half is the pursuit of meaning, wholeness
and the further creation of consciousness. One must overcome one’s
resistance to change and resist the dread of age and its stereotypes as
deterioration and decline. [Fountain Of Age, Betty Friedan, pg.
464-7]
Let me tell you the story of Two Old Women. I, of course, read the
book as soon as I had time.
This is a story of the people of the arctic region of Alaska. They were
nomads and lived in the harshest of worlds. Food was scarce and the
weather was harsh. In this particular tribe there were two old women who
were cared for by the people for many years. They were called Chickadee
and Star. The chief would instruct the younger men to set up shelters for
the women, provide them with food and water and pull their possessions
from camp to camp. The women tanned animal skins for those who helped
them.
However these women shared a character flaw unusual for people of those
times. Constantly they complained of aches and pains and carried walking
sticks to attest to their handicaps. No one reprimanded the two women and
they continued to travel with the stronger ones until one fateful day.
The hunting had not been good and there was harsh weather ahead. The chief
and the counsel made a decision and announced that they were going to
leave the old ones behind. Hunger and cold had taken its toll and no one
objected. The women were left with their possessions and the tribe packed
up to move on. One of the women had a daughter and grandson, who needed
the tribe to survive and made no protest. The daughter gave her mother
some warm furs and the grandson his most treasured possession, his hatchet
made of sharpened animal bones.
The women did not know what to do. They watched the tribe pack up and move
on. They had seen the tribe leave others behind, but these were people
sick and blind and ready to die. These women, although 75 and 80 years,
were not ready to die. They sat there, angry and determined to do
something. They could sit there and wait to die or they could believe they
had earned the right to live and say: if we are going to die, let us die
trying...
To read the rest of this
lovely sermon by Rev. Sinnamon click on the link below.....
Grace comes through the tasks of old age, identified
here as “we’ll pray, and sing, and tell old tales and laugh...”
According to Helen Luke,
All these four things are
activities without purpose; any one of them is immediately killed by any
hint of striving for achievement. They come to birth only in a heart freed
from preoccupation with the goals of the ego, however “spiritual” or
lofty these goals may be.
—Old
Age, Journey into Simplicity
"In such journeys, time is our ally, not our enemy. We can grow
wise. As the arteries harden, the spirit can lighten. As the legs
fail, the soul can take wing. Things do add up. Life does have shape
and maybe even purpose. Or so it seems to me."
- Sylvia Fraser
“Life without love is a bird without a song. Life without trust is a night
without day. Life without faith is a tree without root. Life without hope is a
year without Spring. Life without friends is a sun without shade. Life without
work is a bloom without fruit.”
Dr. William Arthur Ward
In the past, most people didn't
"age"; they died. Throughout 99
percent of human history, the average life expectancy was less than 18
years. Societies didn't concern themselves with the needs of their aging
citizens because there weren't many. In the middle of the last century, the
average woman was bearing six or seven children. Average life expectancy was 45
years. The median age was 17.
Today, as a result of
long-sought-after breakthroughs in longevity, we are witnessing the birth of
aging societies. Today's elders are the first generation in human history of
long-lived men and women--yet we are living in a world that was built for the
young.
For instance, the buttons on our
shirts are made for hands unaffected by arthritis. The typefaces in our
newspapers and books are sized for eyes under the age of 40.
Bucket seats in automobiles are designed around the ergonomic needs of 22-year-old
men.
Are we ready for many, many older
people? Are we prepared for the incredible growth in the number of 60-, 70-, 80-,
90-
and 100-year-olds,
and for the migration into maturity of the postWorld War II
baby boom generation, of which I'm a part? Are we becoming a gerontocracy?
To read the seven wake-up calls
and the remainder of this article click on the link below:
As we age, we
often learn that everything comes in its own time. As is true of most people,
however, that lesson did not come easily or quickly to a lovely woman in her
late 70s who recently invited me for coffee on a drizzly autumn morning. Knowing
she is an artist of great spiritual depth, I asked Rose (not her real name) some
questions about her spiritual quest and her work bringing a labyrinth building
project to fruition in her--and my--congregation.
Rose's spiritual quest
began 30 years ago when some of her daughter's college friends told her they
were meditating. Rose had belonged to a mainstream Protestant church in the
upper Midwest since 1948. Though active in the church, she increasingly felt
what she called "a terrible need" that was not met by Sunday morning
worship and occasional adult education opportunities.
Shortly
after visiting her daughter and meeting her daughter's friends, Rose noticed a
sign at her local grocery store that advertised classes on transcendental
meditation. Was this what she had been searching for? Timidly, she enrolled in
the class. After one week of meditating, her husband noted a difference in her,
"like day and night." Much to her surprise and pleasure, the former
Marine soon joined her in meditation, and the couple meditated together twice a
day until he died.
As Rose
says, everything since has come to her in its own time, including her
self-discovery as an artist.
To
read the rest of this article please click on the link below:
Prayer has a very significant role in the lives of many older women. In the past several years,
two researchers have conducted studies interviewing older Christian women about
the forms and functions of prayer in their lives: how, when and where they pray;
prayer and their relationship to God; and how prayer has changed for them as
they have grown older.
Susan McFadden, a
professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, has interviewed
wives of Protestant ministers as part of an unpublished study. I have spent
several years interviewing older Catholic women religious. The data from these
studies show many common themes in the prayer lives of women, all of whom were
between the ages of 65 and 98.
For many of the women
interviewed, both Catholic and Protestant, prayer is a constant activity. It is
a "fuel," a way of being, a way of connecting, and many times, a way
of coping. They described prayer as a relationship with God, an opportunity to
be in God's presence and possibly a means of allowing God to speak through them.
As one member of the United Church of Christ said, "I don't just think of
prayer as a bowing of the head and folding of the hands. I think of it as more
of an attitude toward life and toward people. It is kind of like practicing the
presence of God. Things go better for me when I can be conscious of that spirit
as I do whatever I do."....
To read the complete article
you will find a link on the following page:
Is the only goal of spirituality in aging to maintain health? A growing number
of people think otherwise. They have begun advocating a different approach to
aging: treating the later years as a new, unique stage in life rather than
trying to extend youth. Dr. Drew Leder, a professor of philosophy at Loyola
University in Maryland and author of the spiritual workbook
Spiritual Passages:
Embracing Life's Sacred Journey, has drawn upon the spiritual beliefs of many
different cultures to build a model of aging as an opportunity for spiritual
growth.
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began
at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to
undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
~ W. Somerset Maugham ~
Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got
hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before
handing it on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw
by: Mary Moorhead, MS, MFT,CMC, Elder Care Specialist
No matter what your age or health, isn't it wonderful to be alive at the dawn of
the year 2000? Doesn't it feel as if we have reached the future?
Certainly the technological and medical advances of the last
50 years and those promised in the Millennium seem the stuff of
science fiction. Life expectancy in 1900 was 49; now it is 70-80. Many are living to 100, and
projections push life expectancy to 130.
The 20th century saw the birth of organ transplants, advanced heart surgeries,
life saving antibiotics and medications for everything from mental illness to
Parkinson's Disease. This new century seduces us
with
yet more fantastic biotechnological advances. We do not have to accept our
given bodies, many diseases, or advancing age.
We can refashion ourselves through liposuction, implants, plastic
surgery. We survive AIDES and Cancer. Amazingly, Christopher Reeve,
paralyzed from the neck down, continues to work and lead a productive life
because of an elaborate life support system. Women can have babies in our 60's.
Scientists are decoding DNA. Sheep have been cloned.
The future is now. Yet what connotes successful aging? The perfectly preserved
body or something else?............
"It
is my feeling that as we grow older we should become not less radical but
more so. I do not, of course, mean this in any political-party sense, but in
a willingness to struggle for those things in which we passionately
believe."
- Margaret Laurence
21st
Century Lives:
James Hillman Both Old and Young Must Learn
to Value the Beauty of Aging
Psychologist
James Hillman believes that to change our culture’s attitude toward age, older
people need to be seen as active in society and as role models. (ABCNEWS.com)
June 23 —
“Most people, they’re afraid of growing old,” says James Hillman.
“Aging doesn’t seem to be anything but the machine
running down. And that’s a sad way of thinking about a great part of your
life.”
James Hillman, who is seventy-four, is wondering how a
nation that adores antique furniture, is captivated with classic cars, and is
enraptured with fall colors can be so terrified about growing old.
“We’ve caught up the word ‘old’ with the word
‘death’ or ‘dying’ or ‘decay’,” Hillman says.
In fact, he has been thinking about age a lot lately.
Yesterday, he was cooking dinner for his sister’s 80th birthday.
Hillman is a psychologist and studied with Carl Jung.
In his decades of study he has learned much about human fears. The fear of
aging, he believes, is a side effect of the American culture of youth worship.
Look young. Act young. Be beautiful.
And no one who is young themselves, he argues, can
truly imagine what it is like to grow old. So we fear it and hang onto those
fears when we are old ourselves.
“All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make, the better.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can
I Live to be 125?
If
you don't, your children may, thanks to scientists looking for longevity genes.
But who will want to live that long?
by
JONATHAN WEINER
Walking
and talking get more difficult for my mother every day, and when I phoned to
tell her the headline of this story, there was a long pause before she found the
words to reply: "I don't recommend it."
At 75,
she is fighting one of the innumerable syndromes that elderly flesh is heir to.
For reasons that no neurologist can explain, many of her brain cells are filling
with debris called Lewy bodies. Her symptoms resemble those of Alzheimer's, and
like Alzheimer's, the condition is sometimes genetic. Do we have to grow old so
sadly? Before we go, do we have to lose most of the natural gifts that make life
worth living? We are the first people in human history for whom this is a
primary concern. For every generation before ours, the first concerns were Can I
grow old? Will my baby reach a ripe old age? Please let us grow older! Now the
average life expectancy in the U.S. has advanced from 47 in 1900 to better than
76 in 1999. During the next century, new biological discoveries should ensure
that even more of us will live to see old age and will encourage us to dream, in
wild or wistful moments, that we might not have to grow old at all.....
Productive
Aging in the 21st Century
Editorial by Robert Knechtel
LETS
take a look at the landscape for older workers as it unfolds today.
Baby boomers will begin to reach age 65 by 2010. Although prevailing
attitudes in our society remain slanted against older workers, already there are
profound changes taking place.
Consider these factors;
There are over 16 million Americans over 55 who are either
working or seeking work.
Older workers are getting new jobs at an annual rate of 4.1
percent. This is more than double the .8 percent rate in the general
population.
Older Americans make up 10 percent of the workforce, but
account for 22 percent of the nation’s job growth.
Extensive research has found no relationship between age and
job performance. Americans age 55 and above take fewer sick days, adapt to new
technologies successfully, and are more loyal to their employer than
thirtysomethings.
A survey of human resource professionals found that 62
percent are hiring retired employees as consultants.
By 2010 there will be a severe labor shortage as baby boomers
begin to retire and fewer younger workers are available because of slow
population growth between 1966 and 1985. Unless we can keep older, productive
people working, labor tightness will slow down the economy......
The rest of this article
will be found at the link below:
AMY GAGE
STAFF COLUMNIST
A 62-year-old state employee who had always
succeeded at her job recently paid a visit to a workplace counselor. The woman's
manager had said she was slowing down, losing her edge. The woman wondered
whether she could cut it at work anymore.
"Some older employees are getting negative feedback from their supervisors,''
says the counselor, Peg Ryan, who works for the state's employee
assistance program. The issues of aging—stereotypes, physical challenges and
emotions—are going to become increasingly visible at work, Ryan says.
The work force is growing older. Because the generations behind the baby
boomers are significantly smaller, the tight labor market shows no sign of
loosening. That means employers will have to change their attitudes about older
workers, change their benefits policies and redefine what "retirement'' really
means.....
To learn more about Project 2030, go to the Minnesota Department of Human
Services Web site, www.dhs.state.mn.us,
and follow the prompts to "Aging Initiative.''
Therefore
we do not lose heart.
Even though our outward man is perishing,
yet the
inward man is being renewed day by day.
[2 Corinthians 4:16] ~
Bible
~
"The
wise man doesn't expect to find life worth living; 
