The Periodic Midlife/Longlife Update E-newsletter - February 2006

The Periodic Midlife/Longlife Update E-newsletter is devoted to sharing information and enhancing excellence in ongoing faith and holistic formation for maturing adults from midlife through end of life.

Bill Prather, Founder and Director of Partners In Pastoral Care

seeks to provide members with an ongoing flow of practical information that leaders/models can use directly with adults of all ages. Training is also offered through the educational arm of Partners in Pastoral Care.

All opinions expressed herein are those of the author. Permission is granted to reproduce this issue in whole or in part as long as its source is identified.

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In This Issue:

Making a Spiritual Journey Out of Retirement
Give One Day A Week to God!
New Definition of “Senior Moment”
Press on Toward the Goal …
Would you rather be an Elder or an Elderly? A Message for Your MidLifers and LongLifers

1. The “snowbird season” is almost over here in Florida. Frankly, I will not miss the congested roadways, dinner establishments, workout facilities and parking places. What I will miss most are those beautiful people who consider themselves retired, many of whom I have become acquainted with, exchanged stories with, worshipped with, and shared laughter and tears with.

During these last four or five months, I have asked these acquaintances what retirement means to them. Not surprisingly, they validate what I have believed for some time; in fact, it is the same thing that both our culture and most of our churches preach: a frenetic action of the body, excessive social interaction, and a constant search for entertainment. For example, a respected Evangelical church with a “fantastic Senior Adult Ministry” here in Southwest Florida has sponsored (from the first of January until the end of March) 36 senior men’s golf outings, 28 senior women’s golf outings, and six senior mixed golf outings. There have been 26 weekly senior men’s and women’s tennis outings and mixed doubles, along with a Saturday-Sunday tournament. There have been 13 sponsored senior tour trips, all the way from a trip to the Bible Land attraction in Orlando to an “Explore the Ecology of the Everglades” outing. The church purchased and sold over 200 tickets to a concert of gospel music. They had three “sell-out” senior adult dinner theater outings, not to mention the seven senior potluck and other socials held at the church campus.

Yet, on the intellectual and certainly on the spiritual level, it seems to have lulled many of my precious Midlife/Longlife retirees into a somnolence of inactivity and non-stimulation. The earliest worship service on Sunday mornings during the past three months was attended by a sea of white hair but the attendance on Sunday evenings and midweek barely increased. The classes offered for the 50+ remained about the same. There was no increase in the cell groups. I think this quote sums it up rather well:

“The vital Christian retiree should not be so worried that he/she might miss something back at the country club or lodge if they’re not there for a time; rather he/she should be worried that tucked into a comfortable retirement lifestyle, he/she might miss God!”

What are we really pursuing in retirement? My personal, pastoral, professional and clinical experience tells me that our true heart’s desire is deepening levels of life meaning and a peace of heart and mind—a peace that only Jesus can give.

Is your church and denominational leadership helping its retirees and future retirees move in this direction? Most churches are traversing troubled waters when it comes to ministering to the Midlife/Longlife Adult. I really believe what is needed are leaders/pastors who can help to revive and redefine retirement living in congregations, renew faith, and illuminate a new vision of holiness and service. Being Christian means we pursue excellence in living life fully as Christ gave us the vision of living abundantly in The Beatitudes.

I encourage you to explore the possibilities of attending a workshop facilitated by Partners In Pastoral Care in the beautiful Smoky Mountains this fall, entitled, “The Spiritual Journey of Retirement.”

2. The book, The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren (Zondervan Press, Grand Rapids, MI 2002) has lost some of its popularity but is found on many an elders’ side table. A month or so ago, my mother ordered half a dozen of these books to give to folks at the grocery store, pharmacy, hair salon, etc. She gives testimony of some of these folks trying to make a change in their lifestyles due to the pages and chapters of the book. Previously, it created a growth industry of personal introspection in many churches. Just a few months ago, I passed no fewer than three churches each sporting a very large banner, easily read by passing motorists: “Find Your Purpose Inside!” I have read the book, and have even been involved in a small group actively working through its suggested course. I find the book provocative in that it confronts the narcissistic notion that finding purpose is a solitary pursuit; i.e., your life’s purpose somehow resides inside of you just waiting for you to be clever enough to extract it. The first sentence of the book is: “It’s not about you.”

Partners In Pastoral Care has long advocated that retirees give “One day a week to God.” Certainly we need to surrender our full lives, every day, to God, yet what our little slogan means is that we offer our services at least one full day per week to do God’s work. And what is God’s work? Any voluntary act given from your heart for the express and conscious purpose of serving God. The day is meant to be a day of active prayer, a day when you offer yourself in service to God’s children in whatever capacity that builds on your God-given gifts and talents. There is no shortage of work to be done in the vineyards of the world. God needs workers…the harvest is ready! Who knows? You may discover your life’s purpose by giving one day a week to God.

3. In two recent readings I came across new thoughts on the very common (indeed, so common that it has become tired) phrase, “senior moment.”

The first was in Barbara Shlemon Ryan’s 2005 revision of her 1982 book, Healing the Hidden Self. (I recommend the book.) On page 111, Ryan writes: “I also refused to use the term ‘senior moment’ when my brain wasn’t able to recall certain information. Instead, I referred to those moments as ‘intellectual interruptions.’ As one gentleman remarked when he experienced a momentary lapse of memory, ‘My hard drive is operating okay but my data retrieval system just shut down!’”

The second reference appeared in the article “Senior Moments” and the Cloud of Unknowing that appeared in Human Development (Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer 2004) by Francis Dorff, O. Praem., S.T.D. Fr. Dorff says: “It may never have occurred to us that cultivating the type of forgetfulness to which our senior moments introduce us can be a deeply spiritual work. For the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, however, it is clearly the primary work of a contemplative way of living.”

Isn’t this a new twist on “senior moments”? Senior moments may have spiritual utility…how novel! Fr. Dorff goes on: “From this point of view, our ‘senior moments’ may be very special moments of grace. They may be effortlessly taking us to a place that it might otherwise require years of dedicated centering prayer or contemplative meditative practice to enter.”

Fr. Dorff refers to “senior moments” as spontaneous stirrings of love, and writes: “These spontaneous stirrings of love come from a place that is completely beyond our control. They come from the dark, silent, deeper-than-conscious, ‘nowhere’ depths of our soul.”

The next time I have a “senior moment” I’ll try to remember the words of Fr. Dorff, and pause for the refreshment of my soul that the moment with God can offer me. Thank you, Fr. Dorff, for your daring insight. I just hope I can remember it!

It just may be that you or someone you know would be interested in participating in a weekend retreat, sponsored by Partners In Pastoral Care, involved in “Discovering My Soul.” If so, contact us for dates and places of these retreats.

4. Drs. Ella and Henry Mitchell first met in 1941 as they registered at Union Theological Seminary; they’ve been together ever since. Over the years, they have distinguished themselves at several Protestant seminaries. Now, after circling the sun 80 times, they were asked to deliver a televised sermon on the Chicago PBS TV show “30 Good Minutes.” Their comments caught my attention this month because of the obvious reference to aging. They constructed their sermon on Paul’s epistle to the church at Philippi, third chapter, verses 14 and 15:

I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind” (NRSV Catholic Edition).
Dr. Ella says, “For seniors today, the message is clear. It is never too late and we are never too old to move forward, to grow, to improve ourselves. No matter how much we have achieved in the past, we need to be sure to keep looking ahead and doing better.”

She goes on: “God didn’t make us to run backwards or to look back while we run. We can be hurt badly if we try to look back and run forward. Every runner knows that. Paul is saying that on the track of life, there may be a temptation to look backwards. But no matter how far we have run, or how well we have run, there are still miles to go and still a need to look where we are going. In the Christian life, the same rule applies. We don’t advocate amnesia, of course, but we need to put past glory in the inactive file and live now, for what God is calling us to do (be) today and tomorrow.”

This message is of particular interest to retirees who have experienced considerable success in their working years. For them, the temptation to look back is particularly seductive. You may have heard a retiree says words to the effect, “Oh…1987, that was my best year!” It might be that 1987 was indeed a very productive year, a year of robust accomplishment, and even grand adulation. But today isn’t 1987!

Looking back is not a pathologic practice; it’s not innately bad to remember. But what is unhealthy is to continue to draw one’s identity from what “was” in your life, to hold on to past achievements as today’s accomplishments, to define one’s self today by yesterday’s deeds. Such a perspective and attitude deludes us into defrauding today of its meaning, to cheapen the purpose of today to the degree that we must now make an excuse for being less than what God is calling us to be today. A regressive attitude like this is an unfortunate testimony to the fact that its author is missing the point of the maturation process, and consequently can only diminish the process. An attitude like this looks back, not for the purpose of making today more understandable, but for the purpose of taking one’s very self-definition from what is now over. When we look back like this, St. Paul warns us that we will not be mature; we will not be sufficiently awake to embrace the “heavenly call” of Christ Jesus. Note: For a full text of the televised sermon,
you can log on to: http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/Mitchell_4110.htm.

5. Some of you know that one of my pet peeves is the difference between the words elder and elderly. The word elderly, of course, is an adjective, a descriptor that is placed in front of a noun for modification, such as: He is a handsome elderly gentleman. Often we do use the word elderly this way; but we also incorrectly convert the word into a noun. We speak of the elderly as a general classification of people. Didn’t your fifth grade teacher tell you never to use adjectives as nouns, because you might confuse the reader? Well, we are confused; certainly we’re confused about aging. I believe that when we use the word elderly this way, it is inaccurate, haughty, and pejorative; it simply contributes to the prejudice we call ageism.

If we do a word association with the word elderly, we might come up with words like: frail, crabby, inept, old, decrepit, forgetful, slow, tiresome, and so forth. When we do the same with the word elder, we might come up with words like: sage, wise, witty, happy, counselor, capable, understanding, and the like. Now I ask you:

Would you rather grow up to be an elderly or an elder?
But what creates the difference between becoming an elder or an elderly? To answer this question, we must look at one’s personality, the sum total of the ways we communicate what we are to the world. We do this via six functions: 1) believing; 2) perceiving; 3) thinking; 4) feeling; 5) deciding; and 6) acting. So, an emerging elder uses her/his personality differently than does a regressing elderly.

An elderly:

Believes aging is a senseless physical process of decline.
Perceives him/herself as being attacked by aging.
Thinks that aging ought to be attacked back.
Feels threatened by the very process of aging.
Decides to hide from aging as much as possible.
Acts like a critic.

An elder:

Believes that aging is a progressive force ordained by God that teaches me how to BE (not do) more my authentic self.
Perceives her/himself being spiritually transformed by aging.
Thinks that aging should be embraced for all it has to offer.
Feels spiritually exhilarated by the changes that aging brings.
Decides to engage fully in the spiritual process of aging.
Acts like a spiritual mentor.

Definition of an Elder: An Elder is a person

Who is still growing;
Still a learner,
Still with potential,
Whose life continues to have within it
Promise for and connection to,
The future.
An Elder is still in pursuit of
Happiness, joy and pleasure
And her or his birthright to these
Remains intact.
Moreover, an Elder is a person
Who deserves respect and honor,
Whose work it is to synthesize
Wisdom from long-life experience
And formulate this into a legacy
For future generations.

From: The Live Oak Project, reprinted by Spiritual Eldering Project of P’nai Or Religious Fellowship

NOTE: I like the above little definition of an elder as far as it goes; however, I would add the following to it:

An elder is a person who has
            discovered new life
            as a consequence of the
            maturation process.
An elder is a person whose personality
            is transformed because she or he
            sees beyond the physical level of life.
An elder is “in touch” with the
most noble parts of life
            in ways they couldn’t have been
            in younger years.

The purpose of the maturation process is not simply to continue or elongate what was about life, but a process that creates something altogether new in this very moment, while at the same time points to what’s to come.
I present this material at a deeper level with strong scriptural and study resources to various faith groups, anywhere, anytime. Contact Partners In Pastoral Care office if you have further interest.
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