Reflections on the Beginning of a New Era

From The Living Church-

This past June family and friends joined me in the celebration of my 83rd birthday. Normally, big birthdays come with a new decade: 60, 70, 80, 90, and even, in this day of medical wonders, 100. But for me 83 marked a big birthday. For various reasons, on this birthday, I realized that the life I had lived — as a priest of the Church, a missionary, a teacher of ethics, the dean of a seminary, and an author — had come to an end. At first, this realization made me resentful. But then it occurred to me that I was entering a new era filled with challenge but even more with promise.

This new era is certainly one of challenge. Old age is a period of decline — of physical and mental powers along with one’s social status. It is a period of life in which we are being stripped. Our professional life is behind us, our friends are dying off, and our society does not really know what to do with elderly people. There are no two ways about it! But this paring down brings with it the possibility of real blessings. Chief among them is unclaimed time — space in the passage of days, months, and years that is free of the business of life. As such, it can be used to assess one’s life, come to terms with things both done and left undone, and most of all make new beginnings. In short, the stripping of our lives can be viewed not as a loss but as a gift of grace that allows for the fashioning of a new form of life.

More here-

https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/07/18/reflections-on-the-beginning-of-a-new-era/

Till death (or illness or dementia) us do part?

From The Washington Post-

Her paintings still hang in their home in Lynchburg, Va., but almost everything else has changed for the couple after she was diagnosed with possible Alzheimer’s and then an abrupt form of dementia.

In one moment, the retired Charismatic Episcopal bishop said, she would lean over to kiss him. “An hour later, she looked at me and said, ‘Who are you?’” he recalled.

When the person you married goes through a dramatic change, what’s a spouse to do? As Valentine’s Day approaches, clergy, ethicists and brain injury experts agree: There are no easy answers.

When a couple is faced with the sudden or gradual change in the person who now may no longer be able to give flowers or go out to the movies, it often means a new definition of love.

“I made a vow,” said an emotional Weeks. “For better or for worse, in sickness and health. She has stood by me in mission work, in the pastorate. Why can’t I stand by her now?”

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/till-death-or-illness-or-dementia-us-do-part/2012/02/08/gIQAJ2AXzQ_story.html

Episcopal gathering will study connection between aging, spirituality

From Wisconsin-

Some things really do get better with age.

Despite the stereotype that reduces older adults to crotchety collections of their ailments, aging in fact brings a greater self-awareness and increased capacity for empathy and compassion - key elements in the development of spirituality, says Benjamin Campbell, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

That propensity and openness are the foundations for an upcoming daylong conference where Campbell and a host of others will explore the relationship between aging and spirituality.

Friday's program, sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee, is aimed at seniors and their caregivers, and topics will range from spiritual practices to co-housing and death and dying.

"At this time in our lives, in our 60s and older, people want to talk about the big questions - Is there life after death? What should the purpose of life be in our later years?" said Mary Waller, who sits on the diocese's Elder Ministries Committee and is helping organize the event.

At the same time, she said, they're much more interested in spirituality than denominational divisions and dogma, and that will be reflected in the workshops and presenters, who represent a variety of faith traditions.

The featured speaker, for example, will be the controversial theologian and Episcopal writer Matthew Fox, best known as a proponent of creation spirituality. Fox became an Episcopal priest after being expelled from the Dominican Catholic order in the 1990s.

More here-

http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/118887134.html