The Spirituality of Aging

Renee and Mary Jane: hearts of gold!

For the past 5 months, I’ve had the privilege of accompanying a couple of leaders as they pursue ideas related to ministry with older adults. Nine days ago we gathered a small group of people to listen and explore collaborative trajectories in this.

A collage making exercise to help us
question assumptions related to 
ministry with older adults

As part of our listening time, we engaged in an exercise designed to draw out the “Top 10 Questions of Older Adults.” Here’s what the group came up with in a short period of time:

1. How will I maintain my health? How long do I have?

2. Who am I now?

3. Why am I still here?

4. What’s my legacy? What am I leaving behind?

5. How will I stay active, engaged?

6. Will I be lonely?

7. How do I continue to find meaning in life?

8. Can I maintain my autonomy?

9. How do I deal with grief and loss?

10. What will my quality of life be? What can I afford? Where will I live?

Not bad, I feel, for a first pass.

Group work: Top Ten Questions of Older Adults

One of the benefits of this process is that, overall, we are taking our time about it. We only considered two items of a list of 6 we had in mind and the next meeting will take place in two weeks.

So, we have some time to let the initial brainstorm settle and sift.

In that slower space, new ideas come to mind. For example, I found myself thinking about the issue of regret. I’m still middle-aged but I can already tell that if I do not tend to regret in these “young” years it will bite me in the butt when I am older. And dealing with regret is something I need to be intentional about because…let’s be honest…I’d rather just stick my head in the sand and hope it goes away. It’s not easy to deal with regret so sometimes our natural inclination is to just…ignore it.

But ignored regret does not go away. I can only imagine how many older adults face their twilight years not having dealt with regret adequately. I can think of a few older adults I know personally who wrestle with this. It is truly a ministry of mercy and redemption to help them work through significant questions of regret, I believe.

So, I proposed to the group that we add “regret” to the questions. Perhaps include it with question 9 on the themes of grief and loss. Something like: “How do I deal with grief, loss and regret?”

I am checking it with the group, but so far the response has been positive to include it.

Anyway, in the process of this I also asked the group to look at the questions and sound off on their thoughts, add anything they feel is missing. One of the group members wrote this to me just a little bit ago:

“One question that seems to be missing for me relates to spiritual growth. The question ‘How do I find meaning in life?’ doesn't adequately address the topic for me. As an older adult, I want to confront ageing head-on, with all its challenges and opportunities. I expect to continue to grow spiritually not in spite of age, but as an integral part of ageing. Most of what I read on spirituality and ageing sees faith as a tool for dealing with decline, diminishment and loss. I find this approach very limiting. I want to go deeper into life through faith as I age. I believe that people can grow and change in all stages of life. I want to wrestle with what I encounter through the eyes of faith. I want to share with others the wisdom that comes from this process. This is a journey, a path, a quest that is central to my life at this age. So a central question for me is: ‘How can I grow closer to God, deeper as a person, and share the wisdom I have gained as I navigate the path toward the end of life?’”

I found her insights provocative and insightful so I asked her if I could share them. She graciously agreed and added that much of her thinking is inspired by a book by Robert Weber and Carol Orsborn called The Spirituality of Age.

Sounds like a good book to read!

Stay tuned as we continue this PlayFull journey whereby we engage in conversations and creative exercises designed to help older adults “play from the inside-out.”

Peace,

Troy

PlayFull exists to help people and organizations play from the inside-out. We conduct PlayGroups and PlayDates designed to facilitate holistic growth, learning and discernment. Contact Troy if you'd like to know how PlayFull could be of service to you.

We invite you to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for reading!

birth and rebirth

To be born is one matter—to live is another. The former is a beginning, the latter requires rebirth. It would not surprise me in the least if God counts our days not by the number of years since we were born but by the number of days since our last rebirth.

Some Christians speak of rebirth as a once-in-a-lifetime event. They talk of when they were “born again.” But if we are not born again again, to be merely born again is nothing.

How else are we to continually receive the kingdom of God as a little child? The only way to do so is to be born again again—and again, and again, and again.

I suppose this is part of what Jesus means when he speaks of eternal life. Though the body ages, the spirit can continue to practice childhood—and so, grow wiser. Yes, a life continually renewed is indeed eternal. My prayer is that I would be that kind of person, that we would all inherit eternal life—which is more a quality of life than a quantity of life, more an essence than a measure.

Be born in me, my God, ever new with each sunrise. “Renew a steadfast spirit within me.” When the way seems closed, help me to believe that, when the time is right, “way will open.” Open my eyes to see the wonder of resurrection at work every day, in every season. Thank you for the freedom of childlike play—to go exploring with gusto, to laugh and enjoy goodness all around and within. Show me new ways to play and new ways to help others practice childhood. Help me never take myself too seriously. When times are dark and my sight is as weak as a newborn’s, open my ears to hear your joy in the voices of those around me. When I am helpless like an infant, hold me close and carry me.

So be it. Amen.

"...praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul."

“People are more themselves when joy is the fundamental thing in them, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live.”

–G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Play from the inside-out. We invite you to like PlayFull on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for reading!

good art

One of our Creative Call PlayGroup participants appeared in an art show last week. Here are some words of encouragement I wrote to her after the show...I hope it proves an encouragement to you, too!

Peace,
Troy

...............................................

You are a true artist. You should never doubt that.

On Tuesday, I tried looking for something good at the art show. Here is what I saw:

Some of the pieces were well-painted;

the photographs were stunning in color and composition;

there was a cute series with a fox and a lily;

another man’s art was versatile;

there was an artist with accomplished stylings of Chicago;

a jewelry maker with pieces that were intricate but mostly too large;

but your work was exceptional and best.

Let me tell you why.

Your work was redemptive. “Nothing Wasted.”

Though the photographs were well-taken…they were ugly. Pictures of waste. Maybe they were pictures about mourning decay. But mourning the night is redemptive only when Morning, whose second name is Joy, moves in. Brokenness without healing is just brokenness.

Your work portrayed a story of precious material…thrown away…and reclaimed to become something it could never become on its own without the Loving Hand of a Master Artist. Your work was imbued with dignity. And, because of its whimsy (who takes aluminum cans and makes flowers, anyway?) your work showed us what a smiling queen looks like.  So beautiful. We need more of that. 

Your work was understated. The rings you make do not have to be big. They are big by being small. They do not have to lust after attention. Their tiny simplicity causes one to lean in to get a closer look. Looking for beauty is a movement of desire. The looker wants to look. I wanted more light so I could see more clearly the contours of the piece. So, I held the ring and angled it this way and that closer to the bulb to get a better look. That’s good art, my friend.

Your work was not superficial. It wasn’t merely “pretty.” It was truthful. Your work held two notions in tension: what a thing had been and what it could be. The hopeful aspect of your work is its beauty. In your work truth and beauty are unified.

Some people believe there is no truth. Pilate could see no truth and because of that he could see no beauty in the disfigured Christ and because of that he could see no goodness in the world, only corruption, only a game to be played, politics and perceptions, attempts to placate frustration.

Some people believe in truth but divorce it from beauty and goodness. I saw plenty of this at the show. Pieces that portrayed someone’s reality…they are being truthful, real with how they feel or what they see…but there is no beauty in it.

There are others who wanted to portray beauty…but it was divorced from truth. Their work was pretty but it lacked depth that made you want to keep looking at it, searching for something substantive…feasting instead of snacking on Funyons.

Your display table was too small for the feast you laid out. Your work was true and beautiful and good.

I think your work displayed this because of the person you are and the person you are becoming. Your art reflected the “was, and is and is to come.” Your art had much of the God in you and you in your God.

Your art was not perfect. Maybe that is what I liked best. I like your art because I like the person you are becoming. You are learning to live with the truth that nothing precious should be thrown away like so much trash.

We don’t throw away a marriage thoughtlessly because it’s dented. We work with it. It will become something even more beautiful when we work with it, believing it can become something wonderful. The belief is risky. When you work with something in belief you feel you might just be taking junk and making it a different kind of junk on a different day. It takes guts to work with broken, thrown out things.

But what do you have to lose? Even if it turns out to be the same old junk on a different day the muscles you exercise in working with it make you a better, stronger person…so, either way, the world is better off and so are you and so are we. You’ve got nothing to lose.

I noticed you had love as a centerpiece, too. Love in large red letters, shining with so many marquee lights. I liked that, but you didn’t need it because everything else that was displayed at your booth communicated love. Still, it was good to see.

You had some other words spelled out, too. I liked those best. In particular, the word Freedom. Freedom gives love legs. Without freedom, love isn’t love. To grant and receive freedom is to love and be loved. You are free to be you, tattooed and blue-haired. I am free to be me, pudgy and old, but goofy in my plain ol’ striped shirt. The difference and the love for the difference makes all the difference.

I liked your work best at the art show because it was different than all the others. Your work was redemptive, beautiful, humble, playful, noble, filled with faith and hope, in touch with reality, a reflection of your true self, at peace with imperfection.

My charge to you is this: Stay true to the art in you which is the art beyond you.  

What Holy Ground Feels Like

A scene: we are gathered together, young and old…kids from age 3 to eighth grade, parents in their forties, friends in their twenties.

We make a circle and in the center a story is told with the use of props…some felt, wooden cutouts, a candle, copper wire twisted in the shape of a tree and some stained glass panels.  It’s a familiar Bible story…when God speaks to Moses at the burning bush.  The story goes that Moses’ name means “drawn out” but here in the desert God draws Moses in. So, Moses comes closer to God, attracted by mystery. But Moses cannot come too close.

God says, “Take off your sandals; this is holy ground.”

Later, we wonder about the story and someone asks why God told Moses to take off his sandals. Then another person asks, “What is holy ground, anyway? What made that ground so special?”

We made some interesting observations. Meanwhile, the three-year old played quietly, contentedly in the lap of his sixth-grade friend.

Then I asked, “I wonder what it feels like to be on holy ground?”

 Without hesitation, one of the adults said, “I know. Like that.”

He pointed to the little child, playing.

We knew his answer was perfect.

PlayFull exists to help people and organizations play from the inside-out. We offer training in a unique kind of children’s ministry that integrates the formation of young and old. Write Troy Cady for more information.

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To Be Full of Wonder

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years…the alienation from the sources of our strength.”                     

 –Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder*

Play from the inside-out. We invite you to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for reading.

*This quote appeared in Plough’s Daily Dig on August 14, 2015.

Awakening

Overnight the

overhead fan

moved the right panel of

the deep red curtain

just inches from closed.

When the sun rose

light’s lips kissed

my closed eyes

till sleep’s mist lifted,

leaving only

the ground of Hope.

The fresh day

has enough alarm

to awaken me from apathy

so I thank you, God,

for the wind

that opens this room up to the Holy

in the night

so I may rise to Rest

in the day.

…………………………………………….

awakening

by Troy Cady

written during The Creative Call PlayGroup

July 23, 2015