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Our mission: to transform the way faith communities serve older adults based on the understanding that aging is a spiritual journey.
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A Note from Nancy Gordon
Director of California Lutheran Homes Center for Spirituality and Aging
This is the time of year when many congregations have switched to summer schedules with fewer events on the calendar and with hopes of experiencing some rest and relaxation. Come September everyone will be back invigorated and full of energy for the beginning of a new program year. I hope that this newsletter will assist you in planning for fall as you think of ways to serve with older adults and how to enlist them in the life and ministry of the congregation.
May your summer be blessed!
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Forget Memory
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In Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia, Anne Davis Basting ponders our expectations of memory and our fear of its loss. She points to our age-phobic culture that doesn't like to think about either death or meaninglessness and the difficulty we have when we encounter Alzheimer's disease, because it brings up thoughts of both. She points to our societal narratives around memory loss associated with dementia--where the theme is the tragedy of the fall from love and beauty, success and identity to a place of tragic separation from and loss of the self.
While the scientific community focuses on a cure for the disease, she calls us to "change our attitudes and our care practices." This is a call that congregations need to hear. As more and more people live longer and longer lives, congregations will have members in the early, middle and late stages of Alzheimer's disease. We can label the presence of the Alzheimer's disease in our midst as a "tragedy" and not step beyond our fears. Or we can see an opportunity to be more fully a congregation responding with faith and grace to the needs in our midst.
Congregations have resources to respond to the call to "change our attitudes and our care practices" in relating to those with Alzheimer's disease. We have the theological affirmation that each and every one of us is created in God's image--and we carry that image for our entire life. Loss of memory and intellectual capacity does not erase God's image within us, nor does it negate our personhood. While our hyper-cognitive culture tends to equate loss of memory and mind power with loss of the self, we are more than our minds, and the affirmation of carrying God's image in our being reminds us of that.
And while all of us forget things both large and small, we were created by a God who doesn't forget, and who most particularly, does not forget his people. Scripture is full of stories of God's remembering--from Noah floating in the ark, to the children of Israel in Egypt, to the return of the exiles to Israel. And when God remembers, God acts in ways that are salvific and redemptive. God's remembering is not an intellectual exercise but is action on behalf of his people, action that is full of grace and mercy.
Part of the call for congregations to "change our attitudes and our care practices" is to live into the call of being Christ's body in the world, and as his body, remembering those with Alzheimer's as God remembers--with concrete actions. Part of this remembering is finding creative ways to include those with Alzheimer's disease and their caretakers in the life of the congregation. Isolation and loneliness are common for those with the disease and for those who care for them. Remembering them as God remembers--in concrete ways, actually re-members them, re-joins them to the body.
Can I encourage you to practice remembering as God remembers--concretely, in ways that are redemptive, and in actions filled with mercy and grace--and to focus such remembering on those in your midst who can no longer remember because of Alzheimer's disease or other dementias? What kind of ministries of care and presence might result because we are seeking to remember as God remembers? And what might we learn about belonging to God and being remembered by him in this process?
I would love to hear your ideas and your experience of ministry to those with Alzheimer's disease. What kind of help do you need for your congregation to be more effective in ministry to older adults, and particularly to those with Alzheimer's disease? To share your ideas email me here.
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Resources
| | Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People with Dementia
by Anne Davis Basting. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Parts 1 & 2 of this book are particularly useful for pastors and lay persons who want to understand our fear of dementia and the cultural stories we tell about memory loss. Part 3 points to programs that creatively undergird personhood in the dementia journey. The whole book raises the question as to what part might congregations play in helping our culture address this issue and what kind of ministries would be most helpful? Available by loan from the Resource Library of the CLH Center for Spirituality and Aging. Email here to request.
A Resource Packet for Congregational Older Adult Ministry from the CLH Center for Spirituality and Aging is available for download here. This packet focuses on life story and ministry to persons with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
The Spring 2010 issue of Caring Connections: An Inter-Lutheran Journal for Practitioners and Teachers of Pastoral Care and Counseling is on "Pastoral Care and Dementia." It can be found here.
An op-ed piece in the May 21, 2011 edition of the New York Times, "Our Irrational Fear of Forgetting" by Margaret Morganroth Gullette is found here.
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Book Reviews
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Talking with God in Old Age: Meditations and Psalms
by Missy Buchanan. Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2010.
Missy Buchanan is an author and columnist who writes about the spiritual journey of aging. In this book she writes in the voice of an older adult who might be lamenting, rejoicing, reflecting on the very personal and embodied experiences of aging. Each topic includes a prayer linked with verses from the Psalms. I sent a copy to my mom to "review" and this is what she said:
When I began to read this book I got excited because I found an author who could take many of my thoughts and express them with truth, clarity and humor. She addresses the fears, frustrations and inabilities we suffer with wonderful, comforting scriptures.
The topics cover many facets of living to be an older adult such as Pain, Dignity, In the Mirror, Alone, and I Haven't Always Been Old. Some lighter topics cover things like What's For Dessert? Cornflakes, Hearing Aid, and Butterflies. I plan to share my copy of this book with others where I live so that they can be blessed and uplifted.
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
by Richard Rohr. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.
In this book, Franciscan Richard Rohr points to directions that need to be taken in the second half of life in order to become spiritually mature and to become the person we were created to be. It's Rohr's belief that most of us remain in the mode of "establishing [our] personal identity, creating various boundary markers for [ourselves], seeking security, and perhaps linking to what seem like significant people or projects" (p. vii) that are the major tasks of the first half of life. But he's here to point the way to a different kind of second half--a second half that has room for necessary suffering, that includes all of ourselves and our experiences, and that looks beyond the resources that we bring to any situation to dependence on the resources of God. It's a life that calls for patient waiting and discernment, contemplation, and response to the call of the Holy Spirit to become our true selves, which he says we "are from the beginning, in the mind and heart of God" (p. 86).
This second half journey usually begins with some sort of "falling"--a failure, an experience that we cannot fix. This is the falling of the title. He calls the book "falling upward" because "those who are ready will see that. . . those who have gone 'down' are the only ones who understand 'up.' Those who have somehow fallen, and fallen well, are the only ones who can go up and not misuse 'up.' I want to describe what 'up' in the second half of life will like--and could look like!" (pp. xxv-xxvi).
In a culture where "success" is valued to the point of encouraging people to a kind of "successful" aging, this book provides an antidote and a way to meaning and significance for those on the second half of life journey. This book is valuable for anyone who is interested in the spiritual journey of aging and could be particularly useful as a study book for a small group or an adult education group. I could also see it being a good men's group study and conversation.
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Sensing the Sacred Training Event--Saturday, September 100-0-
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|  Saturday, September 10, is the day for you if you would like to have some "hands-on" training in telling the stories and presenting the worship service of the Sensing the Sacred Alzheimer's worship program. We will spend some time on a basic introduction to Alzheimer's disease and the methodology behind the program, but most of the time will be spent in practicing telling the stories and learning ways that you can use this resource in service to members of your congregation and/or in local assisted living and nursing facilities. This is an ideal team ministry, and 2-4 people from one church or organization are encouraged to come together. You will receive scripts, worship outlines, and patterns for 4 stories. The training will be led by the Rev. Nancy Gordon, the developer of this worship. You can read a description of this award winning program here.
Here are the details:
What: Sensing the Sacred Training Event
When: Saturday, September 10, 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Where: Walnut Village Retirement Community
891 S. Walnut Street, Anaheim, CA 92802
How much: $25/person. Two or more from the same congregation or organization, $20/person. (Payment in cash or checks made out to California Lutheran Homes at the door.) Lunch will be provided.
Register: email Nancy here with names and number of persons from your organization attending or call her at 714-507-1370.
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Fall Events
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Spiritual Care Basics Course--Care for the Whole Person, October 19
The Rev. Don Koepke, director emeritus and the Rev. Nancy Gordon, director CLH Center for Spirituality and Aging are co-presenting this Spiritual Care Basics workshop on Wednesday, October 19, 8:30 a.m. -4:00 p.m. in Anaheim. Watch for email invitation and registration information.
CASA Network International 50+ Leadership Conference, November 9-11
The Christian Association Serving Adult Ministries Network conference, "Influencing the Generations" will be held at the Doubletree Hotel, Anaheim. Featured speakers include the Rev. Dr. Richard H. Gentzler, Jr., director of the Center on Aging and Older-Adult Ministries for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church; Laura L. Carstensen, Ph.D., professor of Psychology and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity; and Bob Pagett, founder of Assist International.
Click here for a conference brochure.
The Poetics of Aging Conference, November 16-19
Sponsored by AgeSong Institute in collaboration with leading Bay Area universities and organizations, this four day San Francisco conference is focused on the themes: Poetics of Aging Politics, Poetics of Evolving Abilities, Poetics of Caring and Poetics of Life/ Work. More information can be found on the event web site here. |
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