The Periodic Midlife/Longlife Update E-newsletter

November 2006

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:

1. Special Advent Issue

I know that if you are anything like me; this time of the year, the last thing you are going to do is sit down at your computer and read a lengthy newsletter, let along, absorb it’s contents. Therefore, this month’s newsletter is entirely devoted to a review of a marvelous and, I think, special, book just hitting the shelf. I have reviewed for you a few of Harold G. Goenig, M.D.’s books in previous newsletters. This one entitled: Kindness and Joy: Expressing the Gentle Love is so appropriate for this glorious holy season.

I couldn’t think of a better Christmas present; I’m giving a copy to my two sons in law as a stocking stuffer.

Just in review; Dr. Koenig is a psychiatrist by education and a committed Christian by faith. He has devoted his professional career to the study of how faith life connects with our overall wellness. What I term as “wholeness,” Dr. Koenig focuses on maturing adults and how their spirit, mind and body, interact. I believe Dr. Koenig’s wisdom is prophetic; his courage to write what he does in a first rate academic environment is inspired. This is why I want to amplify his voice.

More than a Christmas gift however, I believe this little book has innate power and special utility for us in the sub-discipline of Spiritual Gerontology. This delightful little book can serve as a starting point for much poignant interaction between and among the maturing adults we serve, whether they are Midlife or Longlife.

I want to give you some selected highlights of Dr. Koenig’s ideas here, in the hopes that these gleanings might wet your appetite for the entire work, as an inspirational volume for yourself and as a treasure of ideas for ongoing faith formation for maturing adults.

The first gift, I found, is in the introduction:

Over time, hopefully, we learn to be less obsessively concerned about ourselves. We realize that God will take care of us if we seek to care for God’s children (regardless of age). I suspect that this is what it really means to grow in maturity.

So, maturation, according to Dr. Koenig, has to do with learning how to shift our primary attention away from our own ‘wants’ and re-focus onto the needs of others. I’m reminded here of part of the 23rd Psalm: “Shepherd me oh Lord, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.” Living life well, or advancing in maturity, which of course is at the heart of spiritual gerontology, is about getting beyond oneself … getting ‘out’ of oneself … abandoning oneself … surrendering and giving the lead of our lives over to that ‘packet of divinity’ within us.

The next gift is found almost immediately when Koenig defines Kindness: … an action and way of acting toward another. It is a gentle, caring form of love that is given by one human to another, and may include kind acts and/or kind words. He further describes attributes of kindness:

Kindness is ..

Always gentle
May involve tremendous effort
Is altruistic and generous
Is honest
Expects nothing in return
Involves more than just good intention
Uses common sense
Shows appreciation

He also describes what kindness is not …

Kindness is not …

Done for any ulterior motive
A guise for a hidden agenda
Deceptive or manipulative
Being passive, allowing others to ‘control’ you

Dr. Koenig states that: cruelty, neglect, rudeness, and indifference are the major corollaries, or opposites of kindness.

Kindness, he asserts, generates two kinds of rewards: internal and external.

I have spent the last week meditating on and unwrapping his gift in describing Joy … the internal reward of Kindness

We experience a celestial feeling, or intangible affective condition flowing from acts of kindness; we call this feeling … joy.

Joy is an experience …

Beyond satisfaction …
Beyond well-being …
Beyond relief.

The Healing Power of Joy: Joy is beyond all of these sensations because joy is transcendent … it wells-up from the seat of the divine within. Joy is the emotion of healing; when joy emerges, all illness (not sickness) dissipates. In the presence of joy, all shadows and all compulsions, all fear-based internal forces, are de-energized; they are rendered powerless.

Dr. Koenig sees joy as the highest positive emotion that humans can experience. He states:

Joy is special because people can experience it in the midst of difficult circumstances and may even have glimpses of joy in the midst of suffering or other negative emotions like depression. … Joy is the emotion of heavenly beings, and it is probably as close to the experience of heaven as we will ever have while here on earth. (Page 33).

The Double Blessing of Kindness

Dr. Koenig adroitly offers us what seems only logical, although he asserts it with the authority of years of research as backup; that kindness generates a double blessing. The kind act is a double blessing because not only is the recipient of the kindness blessed, but also, and at least equally powerfully, the kindness offered is a gift/blessing to the one offering the kindness.

Although to my knowledge there has been no scientific research on kindness, I’m willing to bet that kindness has more than just spiritual benefits. These benefits likely extend also to the mental health of both the kind person and the recipient of kindness. (Page 44)

A few years ago I served a Hospital Cardiology Department as Chaplin. At every staff meeting, prior to my benediction, I would encourage those present to tell every one of their patients, “You can help someone else you see today.” “If it’s only your smile or hand shake.”This simple statement is an invitation to enter into the borderlands of kindness, in helping the patient give of themselves to another person. To focus on the well-being of others. Such a perspective proved innately healing; whether it was simply the shift of focus away from ones personal interests onto another, or whether some biological and chemical shifts occurs in a beneficial direction in the patient, I’ll never know, I only know that it worked! We do feel better when we help someone … when we’re kind.

Dr. Koenig offers selected quotes throughout this small but potent book that enliven his points and inspire us …here’s one that I particularly like that also speaks to maturation in the later years:

“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.” Abraham Joshua Heschel, Jewish Theologian.

Dr. Koenig’s chapter titled “Barriers to Kindness” is of particular interest. Why aren’t we kind all the time?

We seem naturally inclined to focus on ourselves.
When we’re hurt in some way, it’s difficult to be kind.
When we’re in a hurry, kindness comes hard.
If we don’t like someone, kindness seems out-of-place.
It’s difficult to be kind to controlling, proud, or authoritative people.

Yet, we are called to overcome these barriers and volitionally practice kindness.

I won’t give you all of Dr. Koenig’s gifts, nor could I. What I can do is give you a gift by recommending this tiny book of 104 short pages and suggest that you keep it close at hand to use as a touchstone for inspiration. I found that after I read it my heart yearned to offer kindness, indeed to teach kindness in all that I did. I hope the same happens to you.

Your local bookstore many not have the book yet but you can go to www.amazon.com or by going directly to the publishers website: www.templetonpress.org

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