Insights: Aging and Spirituality (Spring 2016)

Aging and Spirituality

Insights The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary

Spring 2016

Johnson • Nordquist • Wiens • Johnson-Miller Thompson • Wilton • Lee • Aymer • Hooker

Insights

The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary

Spring 2016

Volume 131

Number 2

Editor: David F. White Editorial Board: Gregory Cuéllar, Blair Monie, and Randal Whittington The Faculty of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Margaret Aymer Whitney S. Bodman Gregory L. Cuéllar Lewis R. Donelson William Greenway David H. Jensen David W. Johnson Carolyn Browning Helsel Paul K. Hooker Timothy D. Lincoln

Jennifer L. Lord Blair Monie Suzie Park Cynthia L. Rigby Asante U. Todd Eric Wall Theodore J. Wardlaw David F. White Melissa Wiginton Philip Wingeier-Rayo

Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary

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COVER: “Old Woman in Klimt” by Mallory Mishler; 36" x 36," acrylic, oil pen, and gold leaf on canvas ©2009. Used with permission from the artist. See more of Mishler’s work at www. theartonym.com

Contents

2 Introduction

Theodore J. Wardlaw

Aging and Spirituality 3

Full of Days: Aging Well Spiritually

by David W. Johnson

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David Johnson “The Gifts and Graces of Age”

An Interview

15 Reflections

Reflecting on Aging: Pastoral and Personal

by Elizabeth Nordquist

Dance Steps Toward Spiritual Maturity

by Tammy Wiens

Why Aging and Spirituality Deserve the Attention of Religious Educators

by Beverly Johnson-Miller

28 Pastors’ Panel Leanne Thompson, Carlos Wilton, James Lee

32 Required Reading

The Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire: Reading Revelation with a Postcolonial Womanist Hermeneutics of Ambiveilance, written by Shanell T. Smith, reviewed by Margaret Aymer

35 Christianity and the Arts We Pass Through Waters on the Way

by Paul Hooker

Introduction

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his issue of Insights is meant for, well, everybody. It explores a direction in which we’re all going, and a destination which lies at that direction’s end. And its beginning.

This issue is about living well, and aging well. If you feel the resistance to read on, resist that resistance. I did. And what follows in these pages blessed me, assured me, fed me, inspired me.

David Johnson brings to the lead article his typical clarity of thought, crackling language, and deep, candid, joyful pastoral soul. I will be thinking about his observations for a long time—particularly his naming of the lies that stand in the way of aging well spiritually. Elizabeth Nordquist, with such theological alacrity, invites us into moving toward the Mystery, however uncharted, with God. Tammy Wiens pulls on the wisdom of Erik Erikson, Jim Fowler, and Maria Harris, who in different ways elucidate the second half of life. Beverly Johnson-Miller explores the impact of aging (especially amongst us boomers) upon religious education. Leanne Thompson, Carlos Wilton, and James Lee offer pastoral and practical reflections upon the gifts and sometimes challenges of working with aging parishioners. David Johnson gets interviewed, Margaret Aymer offers a book dealing with postcolonial womanist hermeneutics, and Paul Hooker gifts us with another of his splendid poems.

Last Sunday in church, as I write these words, I was somehow liquefied by a verse of the last hymn we sang: “O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.”

When my voice gave out and I slipped into silence, I thought at the time I was grieving for a dear relative who is dying. Now, I realize that I was being given the reason for living well—the vision of an ending that is but a beginning.

Theodore J. Wardlaw President, Austin Seminary

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Full of Days Aging Well Spiritually David W. Johnson

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few hundred miles from where I now work, a woman—a former parishioner of a church I once served—lives in a nursing home. She is 103 years old.

Physically she is rather limited; mentally she remains very sharp. She often says, “I don’t know why I’m still here.” She does not say this with anger or bitterness. She just states it as a fact, the way one might say that it is rainy outside.

There is a sense in which none of us know why we are here. Our purpose in life is mysterious to us no matter what age we are. But I think that what my friend is saying is that she feels that she has lost her future. There is a great difference between having a mysterious future and having no future at all—just an endless unvarying present that will persist until death.

The thing that surprises me about my friend’s comment is not that she said it.

It is how many times I have heard other people say it. “I don’t know why I’m still here” is a common thing for older people to say—especially people who have the sense that they are the last, that they have outlived their contemporaries, or that they have no independence left. The emotional tone may vary considerably, from anger to frustration to grief to a rather clinical objectivity. This sentiment is not in and of itself a sign of depression, and it is surely not indicative of dementia. But it can be an indication that people feel their lives have no purpose or value. This is

David Johnson

is associate professor of church history and Christian spirituality at Austin Seminary and the author of Trust in God: The Christian Life and the Book of Confessions (Geneva Press, 2013). Ordained in the PC(USA), he served churches in Texas and New Jersey and on the faculty of Brite Divinity School. He formerly administered Austin Seminary’s Supervised Practice of Ministry program.

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Spirituality and Aging compounded by demeaning social attitudes about aging, attitudes which the aged themselves often share. The result is a sense of hopelessness or worthlessness and a sense of shame about being old. This feeling is not at all uncommon. But it does not have to be this way.

The Bible uses the phrase “full of days” about people who have not only lived long, but have lived well: Isaac, David, Job. They were not people without trouble.

But they were people who remained close to God throughout their trouble. To age well spiritually is to remain close to God, to come to the end of life full of days. The tradition of Christian Spirituality can offer assistance in aging well, both in combating demeaning social attitudes and in maintaining the worth and the promise of people who are aging. That is the topic we are going to explore.

Aging—Fallacious Attitudes

1. Aging well is looking young. American society is getting older. According to the 2010 US Census, people 65 years or older made up 13% of the population, and those 45-64 years comprised 26.4% of the population. This represented a 15.1% increase in the former group and a 31.5% increase in the latter.1 The percentage increase of people 65 or older will continue as people who are now middle-aged reach age 65.

In spite of this increase, aging, particularly the physical manifestations of aging, is regarded as something unfortunate or even shameful, and—more to the point—avoidable. Graying hair can be dyed. Wrinkled skin can be smoothed. The right prescription drug can restore sexual performance. Plastic surgery can remove or remold most exterior body parts. Any or all of these, it is promised, can make you look and feel years younger, and no one will notice that you seem to be aging backward.

Such measures obviously will not work forever, if they work at all. Their continued success depends not so much on results as it does maintaining the double illusion that aging is both shameful and reversible. The result is the fallacious attitude that the physical consequences of aging can be avoided. Aging well is a matter of looking younger.

2. Aging well is aging well-off. A second, related, fallacy of aging is that aging well depends upon collecting resources: money and property.

There is no doubt that aging can be expensive. Health care costs tend to increase with age, and the increase can be dramatic.2 Those without adequate health care insurance or substantial private means can find themselves facing financial disaster in the face of serious illness. Government programs such as Medicare or the Affordable Care Act are intended to help alleviate this situation, but many older people still find themselves in financial difficulty as a result of illness or injury.

On a more positive note, financial and physical resources can help to make retirement pleasurable (or even possible). An ideal retirement is seen as a time of freedom from the necessity of gainful employment, in which one can pursue certain activities that were previously impossible. These activities are not necessarily 4

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self-oriented. They can be quite altruistic. Many people find that retirement is a time when they can volunteer themselves in ways that were previously impossible.

Adequate resources can enable people to meet health crises (at least financially) and pursue leisure activities that they find enjoyable. Physical self-care can ensure that people will have the bodily capacity to carry out those activities and live without being physically dependent upon others. These are appropriate and reasonable. They can help to minimize the consequences of aging, or at least to cope with those consequences. But they ultimately will fail before the inevitabilities of aging.

Physical self-care and financial prudence are good and necessary in confronting the aging process. Denial about that process is malignant. The key to aging well spiritually lies somewhere else.

Aging Well Spiritually Melvin Kimble writes, “The historic Christian faith has no doctrine of theology of aging per se.”3 This is true in the sense that Christianity has nothing similar to the Hindu Laws of Manu, which describes four stages of life (student, householder, forest-dwelling hermit, and wandering ascetic) and the age at which one can enter each stage.4 However, very early in its history, Christianity developed the idea that the spiritual life develops in a series of identifiable stages involving first of all repentance and renunciation of sin, then maturation in living the life of faith, and finally union with God. The classical conception for these stages—purgation, illumination, and union—was the work of the fifth-century writer known as PseudoDionysus. However, one finds similar stages under different names as far back as Clement of Alexandria. These stages are more or less sequential, with union following the first two states—although union is not simply a human accomplishment, but is, above all, a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is clear, however, that the state of union, if it comes about at all, is preceded by long years of struggle and effort.

The union is not a union of being. Humans do not become divine. Rather, the union is characterized positively by loving and obeying God and negatively by refraining from sin.5

A similar, but not identical, map of spiritual stages is found in the work of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard analyzes the growth of love in the spiritual life. We begin, he says, by loving ourselves for our own sake. We then learn to love God for our own sake. A third stage, which many people never reach completely, is the love of God for God’s sake. The final stage, which Bernard is not sure people can reach in earthly life, is the love of self for God’s sake. This love is love of self the way that God loves the self—agape toward the self, as it were. This is love of self without selfishness or self-concern.

Both of these final stages—union with God and love of self for God’s sake— require human experience. They can only be reached by people who have lived for many years. Of course, age alone does not guarantee that these stages will be achieved. But without human experience, without having lived, even without the experience of failure and sin and repentance and renewal, they simply do not happen.

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Pseudo-Dionysius and Bernard of Clairvaux are pivotal figures in Roman Catholic spirituality. Protestants tend to be more skeptical about the possibility of humans reaching a stage of union with God’s will or loving as God loves, although John Wesley’s understanding of perfection is similar to Catholic descriptions of union with God.6 The Lutheran and Reformed Traditions both insist on the pervasiveness of human sin. There is always a gulf between humans and God, no matter how good that human might appear to be. Lutherans tend to stay with the paradox of the human as simultaneously justified and sinful, and that humans do not ever resolve that paradox in earthly life. The Reformed Tradition, however, does allow a certain progress. The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 167) terms this “improvement of baptism,” and characterizes it as “drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace.” There is no talk of discreet stages here, but there is a sense that the Christian life can and should have a direction, that one can grow in grace.

There are other accounts of spiritual stages or phases that are not tied to any particular tradition or denomination. James Fowler, himself a United Methodist pastor, outlined stages of growth in faith as a human capacity not tied to any particular religion. In his schema, the two highest stages are “conjunctive faith” and “universalizing faith,” which are characteristic of the latter half of life. In these two stages, the recognition of paradox and mystery lead people beyond inherited systems of philosophy and religion to a complex reality, while (in the universalizing stage) learning to see themselves as agents of compassion in a universal community.

Erik Erikson has described all of human life as a series of eight stages with characteristic conflicts. The conflict of later life is “ego integrity versus despair,” in which people recall and reevaluate their lives. Those with a positive view of their lives develop “ego integrity,” while those who regard their lives as unsatisfactory or as a failure are likely to despair.7

Finally, the psychologist Carl Jung suggests that the first half of life consists in the creation of a social self—a “persona” shaped by social expectations—while the last part of life is devoted to the discovery of one’s real self through a process of “individuation.”8

There are thus many ways of seeing the stages and/or tasks of later life from points of view supplied by religions or human studies. The common thread is that later life does have its own distinctive work, which can only be addressed if one is willing to accept the fact of aging and renounce the fantasy of maintaining youth at all costs. In the words of the physician Paul Tournier, “Our task [as physicians] is to help men [sic] right to the end, to help them grow up, and to help them grow old.

The new transition [into old age] means to face, rather than avoid, the question of the true meaning of life.”9 This quest might take the form of finding one’s true self or of nurturing the relationship between one’s self and the Transcendent or Ultimate (however conceived). It might learn that the true self and the Transcendent are discovered together or not at all.

The so-called “Serenity Prayer,” a simplified version of a prayer attributed to 6

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Reinhold Neibuhr, is as follows: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This prayer indeed asks for serenity, but as much as anything, it is a prayer for wisdom. It applies to what happens to us as we age. Things happen that we cannot change: as we age, we lose powers and capacities we once had. The wisdom to know the difference between doing the work that is proper to aging and attempting to deny aging by trying to remain (or to appear) young is the crucial factor in aging well.

Principles Of Aging Well

1. Discern and celebrate the gifts of aging. Aging is not merely a thief. There are certainly “inevitabilities of diminishment,” to use a phrase coined by Nemick and Coombs, but there are also enhancements.10 Aging brings gifts, and those gifts should be recognized and acknowledged.

First, age brings, or at least can bring, wisdom. Wisdom is more than intelligence. Wisdom is the intelligent use of experience. People who are wise have learned from, and can teach from, their fund of life-experiences.

The learning that marks wisdom is the product of all experiences, not just good or pleasant ones. In the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 2-11), the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus if they should follow the law and stone her to death. Jesus replied, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And the people went away, beginning with the oldest among them—presumably because the oldest knew their sinfulness the best.

On the other hand, the prophet Anna, who was eighty-four, was one of the first to recognize who the baby Jesus really was (Luke 2: 36-38). A lifetime of fasting and prayer had resulted in spiritual discernment.

The simple fact that one is old is not enough to guarantee that one will become wise. There unquestionably are old fools. But age provides the raw material that is necessary for wisdom—the wisdom that truly knows the difference between that which can be changed and that which cannot.

For some people, age can bring leisure and financial freedom. Many people in American society are able to retire in reasonably good health, with enough means that they are freed from the necessity of working for a living. Quite often, such people find volunteer ministries. They are able to devote time to their religious communities, or even engage in study and training to become pastors or spiritual directors.

They sometimes spend weeks or months working in disaster relief or community rebuilding. In short, they use their favorable circumstances to serve others.

People who have had custodianship of others—people who are parents, guardians, teachers, or human service workers—can have the opportunity to see their work come to fruition, as children become adults, students become successful and productive workers and colleagues, those who are served become those who serve.

None of this is inevitable. But when wisdom appears, when favorable circumstances enable vital ministries, when the work of parenting, guarding, and teaching is completed, there is every reason to rejoice in thanksgiving. Aging is not simply 7

Spirituality and Aging diminishment. It can be, and often is, accomplishment, as what can be changed is, in fact, changed.

2. Accept the inevitabilities of aging. No matter what one’s circumstances, aging has its consequences. Skin wrinkles. Eyesight starts to become cloudy. Strength diminishes. Hair turns gray, or white, or simply leaves. And so on. Some of these changes can be combated or at least postponed for a while. But some of them simply have to be accepted. However, there is a difference between acceptance and passivity.

Often, aging people have told me that their worst fear is having to be dependent upon someone else. “I don’t want to be a burden,” people say. That is entirely understandable. People treasure their independence, which often is hard-won. Losing that independence can mean losing one’s sense of value and worth.

But dependence is not necessarily disaster. Accepting assistance in one area can enable maintaining independence or activity in other areas. The gift of food preparation, often through organizations such as Meals on Wheels, can help people stay in their own homes. A ride to the doctor can help maintain physical health. An outing with Grandma and Grandpa can provide memories that will last a lifetime.

Having to depend on others for things one used to be able to do by oneself can feel like regression—a return to childhood. It can make one think one’s life has been a failure. But it can mean something quite different—that a person is accepting, even with serenity, the facts of aging that cannot be changed and making use of what other people offer out of generosity and love. Needing assistance is not shameful. It is not a disaster. Often it is for the sake of maintaining what independence remains possible.

Appropriate self-care is a third factor in accepting the inevitabilities of aging.

The fact that we no longer can do everything does not exempt us from doing what we can. It is all too easy to jump from “I don’t want to” to “I can’t” because something is difficult, unpleasant, or embarrassing. It is not shameful to need assistance for what one cannot or should not do on one’s own. But it is shameful to use the fact of aging to manipulate others into doing what we can just as well do ourselves.

Honesty and courage might be required as tasks and activities become more difficult. But we can and should know the difference between “I can’t” and “I don’t want to.”

Finally, accepting the inevitabilities of aging means accepting the inevitability of dying. As one grows older, one experiences more and more death. Parents die.

Friends die. Siblings die. Spouses die. And one gets closer to one’s own dying.

Aging often means grieving. One cannot live without experiencing loss, and one cannot live long without experiencing a number of losses. The feeling that one is the last, that one has outlived all one’s family and friends, can be one of the most difficult aspects of the aging process. And death is one of those things that cannot be changed.

But the ways we approach death, particularly our own death, is something that can be changed. For some people, the knowledge that they are terminally ill is a gift.

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That knowledge can force them to do what they have put off doing.

A former parishioner experienced this when he found out he was suffering from terminal cancer. This person had been married several times and had children from most of the marriages. Those children lived all across the country. He had not seen or spoken with some of them for years. The knowledge that he was dying impelled him to contact all of his children and try to achieve some kind of reconciliation. Some of the children welcomed this. Some remained estranged. There was no overall happy ending. But the knowledge of his impending death forced this person to try to find some kind of healing in his relationships with his children. The fact of his impending death made him try to do that which he knew he should do, but had avoided doing for years. Death forces us to face the difference between that which cannot be changed and that which can and should be changed. Death can make us wiser even in our grief.

3. Reject detrimental and demeaning social attitudes toward aging. Our society overvalues youth and undervalues maturity. Many businesses’s viability depends upon convincing the America public that aging is a disaster. But we do not have to accept this.

Particularly, as Christians, we can oppose the belief that the good life is the young life, and that old people are unpleasant to look at and should be avoided. The value of life does not depend upon the circumstances of life. All lives have value. No person is simply trash.

The first task we face in rejecting such social attitudes is to reject them for ourselves. If we value ourselves, we will value our years. If our youth is gone, it is gone.

But our self is not gone. We do not have to despise ourselves simply because various businesses will make more money if we do.

If we can refuse to accept detrimental and demeaning social attitudes in ourselves, we can begin to reject them for others as well. If we age well, we will be a witness for others, that wisdom and serenity and service are worth much more than youthful hair and smooth skin.

This is true of the church as well as individuals. It has often been remarked that congregations are “graying,” and the church needs to do all that it can do to become younger. But without in any way questioning the need to reach out to youth and young adults, the church should rejoice and celebrate its older members. They often make its ministry possible.

Spiritual Care Ministry to the aging is always mutual. The church is not made up of those who are aging and those who are not. To give care to the aging is to receive care from the aging, for in this context “aging” simply designates those who are a little further ahead on the road we all must walk. Consequently, the church’s ministry to the aging is a ministry of accompanying. It is a traveling with. “Accompanying” means knowing and appreciating the gifts of the aging as well as being aware of their needs. Otherwise, even the best-intentioned ministries to the aging risk becoming 9

Spirituality and Aging patronizing and demeaning to those they intend to serve.

Many people who are older are still able to actively join in the life of congregations. Those who are not still can share the fruit of their experiences. Those who are genuinely spiritually mature can act as guides and mentors to others. They can be a living memory for churches, a way for congregations to remain connected to their own history. A meal or a ride in exchange for a story or a bit of wisdom seems ordinary enough, but it reflects the mutuality of ministry.

Spiritual care is an activity of the entire congregation, not just the pastoral staff. Pastoral care is only one component of the larger caring that occurs when a group of people, bound together by their faith in a particular time and place, genuinely exercise a mutual ministry. Together they can discover their true selves as they renew or mature in their relationship to God. Pastors can certainly assist in making connections, becoming aware of needs, exercising opportunities for learning and sharing, and interpreting for groups of people who are having difficulties in understanding each other. Pastors can assist and enable the ministries of congregations, both internal and external, but they must not dominate or monopolize that ministry. Mutual responsibility and mutual enrichment dies when it is entirely funneled through a paid pastoral staff.

Among the tasks of the pastor in nurturing mutual ministry is establishing and maintaining a healthy perspective on aging. Congregations must learn—or relearn—that one’s worth as a human being is not dependent upon material prosperity or physical prowess. Those who are experiencing tremendous loss in the aging process must not let their grief blind them to what they have gained or been given through their human experience. All must remember that death is not only inevitable; it is God’s gift. Death is the completion of earthly life, but it is the doorway to a new life that is beyond our vision—but not beyond our faith.

So why are we here? None of us are likely to get a complete answer this side of the grave. But at least we can say this: We are here for each other. We are God’s gift to each other. One of the most precious aspects of that gift is the experience we can share and the wisdom we have gained from it. To neglect God’s gifts is a shameful thing—particularly to neglect the individuals who are God’s gifts to us simply because they are old is shameful and wasteful. We all can be more than we are by being present to, for, and with each other. In so doing, we shall be blessed. v NOTES

1. Lindsay M. Howden and Julie A. Meyer, Age and Sex Composition: 2010. 2010 Census Briefs (U. S. Census Bureau: May, 2011), 2, citing material contained in U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 1 and 2010 Summary File 1.

2. Cf. Dale M. Yamamoto, “Health Care Costs—From Birth to Death” (Society of Actuaries, 2013).

3. Melvin A. Kimble, “Aging in the Christian Tradition,” in Thomas R. Cole, et al., eds., Handbook of the Humanities and Aging (New York, NY: Springer, Second edition 2000), 142.

4. These stages are described in many places on the Internet. Cf. Wikipedia contributors, “Ashrama (stage),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ashrama_ (stage)&oldid=690415944 (accessed January 21, 2016).

Continued on page 27

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Interview

David Johnson

“The Gifts and Graces of Age”

I enjoyed your article on spirituality and aging. How did you discover this as a topic of interest?

I served three churches, and all of them had elderly, active people and elderly, limited people. So, I found myself trying to develop a ministry that was not condescending or dehumanizing. Also, human and faith development interests me, all the various stages and tensions, and, wrestling with the question of what does it mean to be spiritually mature? Additionally, my concern grows from my disdain for the widespread fantasy that youth will save the church. You know, that common narrative--if we have to make some decisions about where our outreach goes, we are going to make it with kids. So, I wanted to make the case that people who were in the last third of their life—and particularly people who have enough limitations that it compromises what they can do—are still important and valuable to the church.

So, that’s the polemic part of it. There’s one story—this is when I was in a church that really was convinced that if we could only get the young, married, pregnant people in, we could go back to 1955. I was in a clergy group, and one pastor announced that this coming Sunday was going to be his last. He explained, “I wanted to be a minister so I could change the world, and all I do is have tea with old ladies.”

Well, I internally resented the idea that somehow tea with old ladies had nothing to do with the world. So a lot of little things began to coalesce, coupled with the fact that I seem to be getting older and thinking about what it means to get older.

How would you articulate, for folks who have the mindset that youth will save the church, what is it that older folks have to offer?

First of all, we must combat the societal understanding of aging as diminishing our value. A person’s chronological age does not really affect their worth, in spite of all the advertising pressures to the contrary.

But I think the other part is that there is a kind of an inversion in people’s spiritual life as they get closer to middle age. For young people in today’s society, the spiritual quest is, as far as I can tell, really tied up with vocation. They want to do something that counts and that would be personally rewarding. And it takes people quite a while, sometimes, to really work out what their vocation is.

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But if you talk with somebody who is post retirement, the question for them is more, Who am I really? So, in Christian terms, it can be expressed in terms of spiritual discipline of being comfortable with solitude—with knowing, accepting, realizing, believing that God knows you and loves you as an individual.

And that’s what having tea with little old ladies is all about. But in the face of that, you’re deluged by people saying that being old is shameful and being old can be reversed. There’s a place for all of those, but that’s not gonna bring your youth back, and it would be a disaster if it did.

I think that in order to have a vital present and future you need other people in your life—people who are friends who genuinely care for each other—and the church can give you that.

So, the one thing I think I would want to say to older people is we need your wisdom. You are going to nourish the church through whatever wisdom you have acquired in your life, and we need that a lot more than we need one more person on the ladder of achievement. That is the unique positive that older people always have if they’re willing to recognize it and share it. And I don’t think they will be willing to recognize it and share it unless they are invited.

That term gets used in lots of different ways, but when you say wisdom, you mean life experience.

Yeah, wisdom equals intelligence plus experience. You can be smart from the time you emerge from the womb. You can be wise by living for a while with your eyes and your heart opened. Intelligence certainly helps, but we mostly need people who can see patterns or values in the historical current that surrounds them. And peo12

Interview ple who have been a part of a congregation, not just for weeks or months, but for years, function as the memory of that congregation. A church without a memory is a church in trouble.

How can wisdom benefit youth?

Well, I think young people need more than good advice from old people. The older ones have the wisdom to stay, to patiently accompany. What young people need is a model—someone who can communicate indirectly to younger people about patience and presence and constancy without having to turn it into a moral.

One of the points that you make in regard to ministering with older folks concerns mutuality. Why does that matter?

I think pastors have a very particular task in terms of recognizing and nurturing the gifts in the old population. I think back on my friend who resigned in order to avoid drinking tea with little old ladies, because somehow, I think that raises the question of what is ministry. And a part of his problem was that he was feeling that it was all one way. I think that he was getting more and more depleted without having anything that was motivating or valuable from the exchange.

I think a lot of pastors get burned out because they’re engaging in one-way ministry. Mutuality in ministry is the notion that you receive as you give. You need to spend enough time with individuals so that you can start to understand and appreciate what their gifts are. And that requires visitation—it just does. And it involves discerning an individual’s gifts and encouraging people to appreciate and use their gifts.

One of the ideas that you engage in your article is “aging well.”

I think that we are misled when we think about aging well in terms of health and financial security. But, spirituality involves developing, cultivating, realizing an erstwhile sense of gratitude for your life—you know, Erik Erikson’s last stage involves the virtue of ego integrity vs despair, in other words, looking back and seeing if you did okay, if your life was worthwhile. Erikson doesn’t really see much of a future for people in their last stage. It’s all looking back—and that seems to me a horrendous mistake to make. I think that in order to have a vital present and future you need other people in your life—people who are friends who genuinely care for each other—and the church can give you that.

You need some sense of your “authentic” or “true self,” that somehow there are things about you that are still undiscovered, that discovery is part of your future with God and neighbor. And the third thing that you need is to clarify your relationship with whatever you consider to be transcendent—God. I think, to aid someone spiritually has to do with companionship, it has to do with identity coming to fruition, it has to do with our relationship with the ultimate.

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Spirituality and Aging Does the Christian tradition help us think in terms of futurity?

I hope it does. Actually, going back to young people, I’ve not heard very many young people who have started going to church again say that they are doing that so they could go to heaven. I think, for young people, it’s much more of, What is the meaning of my life, here and now?

Older people, when they talk about the end of life, talk about a reunion. “I’ll see my dad and my mom again.” We’ve trivialized heaven, culturally speaking. But I think that somehow, we will be united with the people that we love, and somehow—“Death shall be no more … neither shall there be weeping or crying or pain anymore.” Yeah, to look at the promise that Christianity reports, that the resurrection of Jesus exemplifies, somehow is enough to keep you not only looking forward, but to keep you from looking at each day as just one more day before I die. I think that you can’t really spend any time in the New Testament without, “I shall make all things new.” And that might be enough.

How do you think this bears on end of life issues? Dorothy Bass and Craig Dykstra talk about “dying well” as a Christian practice.

I think people in the latter part of life tend to think less vocationally because they feel that death is closer. And that’s kinda what I had in mind when I told the story from John that “they all went away, beginning with the oldest”—perhaps because they knew the weight of their own sin. People in the last third of their life are carrying a burden of sin—although they might not think of it that way. And spiritual growth concerns coming to realize that it does not have to imprison them. A part of living toward dying, living pointed in the direction of your death, is knowing how you’ve hurt people. And, in extreme cases that means, make amends while you can.

Some have said that death is a door that looks like a wall. The completion of your earthly life does not end your life with God. In death, you are entirely in God’s hands. There is nothing further you can do. But God’s hands are safe hands. To entrust yourself to God is a part of taking your death seriously.

Part of dying well is acknowledging life as a gift. Earthly life does end, and that does not make it bad or meaningless. So, if you realize that your earthly life is not infinite, but it has still been God’s gift, a rather extravagant one, I do not think God wastes what God has worked very hard to create. So if there is birth, there is also new birth or rebirth.

But one of the ideas out there is—and at one point it was on every truck on the highway—“Life sucks, and then you die.” That empties life of meaning. All you can do, then, is have a good time while you can, for as long as you can, and hope it doesn’t hurt very much when it ends.

It does seem like there are ways to prepare for a good death. If you have lived your life in liturgical practices that recognize life is a gift, and expressly talk about it in that way, it seems like that kind of leans you into an old age that is cognizant of gratitude. Then it does not have to be bitter or resentful of despairing, but full of years crowned with joy. v 14

Reflections

Reflecting on Aging: Pastoral and Personal Elizabeth Nordquist

“When you become older, you are what you always were, only more so!”

Anonymous Do not cast me off in the time of my old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

—Psalm 71:9

I

am “coming of age,” the age of retirement, of slowing body, of acute awareness of my mortality, in a world and time that is changing so rapidly that one can barely keep track. It is not the world in which my mother and grandmother aged. The events spilled out over the news media today would have been incomprehensible to them—countries whose names have changed often in their lifetimes, virulent acts of violence and brutality televised for all the world to see, media systems by which people can be in touch, for better or for worse, at any moment or at any place in one’s day. They would not have recognized the changes that have taken place in the church, each of them raised in small towns in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They would not have understood the changes in worship media, the call to speak and to act prophetically about present-day injustices, or the rise, fall, and reconfiguration of ecclesiastical politics that command national attention.

For them the presence and practices of a life of piety remained constant, through all that they experienced—grief and joy, suffering and thriving, even change and routine.

My generation of aging ones, however, is one that is not only encountering the changes that its advancing years are bringing to them, but it is doing so against a backdrop that is unsettled and unsure, morphing at what seems like warp speed

Elizabeth Nordquist is the retired director of student services and as-

sociate professor of spirituality at San Francisco Theological Seminary in Southern California. She was a pastor in several churches in the Presbytery of the Pacific from 1983-1997, and she presently has a ministry of spiritual direction, as well as preaching and teaching locally and around the country.

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Spirituality and Aging into shapes of systems that would have been imaginable even a decade ago. Terrorism brings the needs and conflicts of the world much closer than we have ever experienced. Medical care, while so much more advanced technologically than before, can seem elusive in its complicated access. The face and the form of the church is shifting mightily in almost every denomination, and no one seems to have a clear idea of what the next forms might look like, and, for the aging population, whether or not there is a place for them in the new configurations. Theological discourse itself is an arena for questioning and wrestling anew about the nature of the Holy One and about the particularity of the claims of the Christian community in a multi-faith or “spiritual but not religious” world.

What remains constant for all humans in the aging process is the inexorable movement of the passing of years in their bodies and minds. Regina Bechtle, S.C., writes in the article, “Sensing Compassion,” in the journal, Weavings (Vol. XXXI, Number 2): Recently I reached one of those birthdays that ends in zero and found myself less than amused. I was feeling my limits, not my oats. The signs were all so clear: the previously placid muscles that started to cramp, the embarrassing bunion when I shopped for shoes, the mild vertigo when I got out of bed, the scaly armadillo skin on my legs, the elusive names and facts that dangled out of mind’s reach. Not only did I have to acknowledge the signs, but I felt stuck in resentment about them.

I laughed and sighed as I recognized all too well some of the familiar sensibilities that Sister Regina lists. However, as with all of the predictable passages of human life that we share in common, each person’s process is particular, shaped by the life he has lived heretofore, or her body and its health, or his resources, and/or her faith journey. As in describing the predictable stages of child development, only a few generalizations can be made about getting older.

Yet for those who are in the church, who have been on a journey of faith for a significant part of their lives, we can claim some features of our faith and doctrine that might sustain us. We are helped greatly by the wisdom of pastors, gerontologists, spiritual directors, and other writers in the last two decades. Among them are Margaret Guenther, Joyce Rupp, Richard Rohr, Ronald Rolheiser, Kathleen Fischer, and Elizabeth Liebert, all of whom have identified some features of the spiritual journey as people age. My denominational periodicals feature articles on spirituality and aging. Some seminaries are offering courses on the particular skillsets needed in pastoral care as the population gets older. As a retired pastor and seminary professor, and currently a spiritual director, over my life of ministry I have drawn on many of these resources, and I am grateful to have them as references.

Yet, now as an aging person myself, I am reflecting on both what I am able to offer in the ministries I continue to have and on what in my life of faith I am able to trust in order to deepen my relationship to God and to the world God loves. What are the elements of my faith that create the container for my quest into my late years? What is the work that I am called to do in my own journey of faith at this 16

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stage of my life? Can my own discoveries be of use to others?

The starting place is always the Mystery we call God, for those of us in the Christian tradition, God in Three Persons: Creator, Redeemer, Indwelling Spirit.

We worship and follow one God with many names. As I age, I ask myself, and ask of those aging with me, What are the images and names for God that are closest to my soul? When I pray, what is my first touchstone with the Mystery? In sitting with people in spiritual direction, we often go back to those experiences when they first were aware of divine presence. Some remember the cross of Jesus in stained glass windows in the sanctuaries where they worshipped; some think of the Good Shepherd whose picture graced the Sunday school; and others speak of the sound of sheer silence in which they became still and knew the Holy One. Some can recall particular exemplars whose grace evoked a holy awareness. Often those memories can become a touchstone of remembrance for a spiritual connection as the aging process proceeds.

For those who were formed spiritually in the church, remembered or re-discovered words of Scripture and hymns can also bring comfort and direction.

“This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”

(Fanny Crosby. “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine,” 1873)

One source of spiritual solace for some is the remembering of the grace of God through one’s life, a spiritual life review. Moses charged those who had been enslaved, wandered in the wilderness, and now were poised on entering a new land: "Remember the long way that the Lord you God has led you” Deuteronomy 8:2.

For many, to recall the God who has been a life companion, the One to whom all deeds are known, through stored images, melodies, and life experiences, provides an anchor for navigating the way forward. For the aging one and for those who accompany them, it is an act of holy compassion to elicit those memories, to honor them by listening to them—sometimes again and again—as an act of loving inclusion in the sacred history of a life.

But the aging journey is not a static museum display case. It is another opportunity to go more deeply into the Mystery, into uncharted territory, with God. It is an occasion in which we can learn more about the depth and breadth and height of the love God made known to us in Christ. It can be a time when the pace of life might slow enough for us to discover more about the One who created us than we have been aware of before.

For example, as the reality of losses and disappointments pile up, we can learn to look to the God of All Comfort, (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4 KJV). For many, the reality of physical diminishment, of relocation, of the inexorable movement of re-imagination in church and society bring great suffering. And all too often the faith community has not wanted to acknowledge the grief work that must be done. Walter Brueggemann has called the faith community to do that work in his book, Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks (Eerdmans, 2014). His call is a communal one, to an expression of public grief, to North Americans living in the present political and economic milieu: 17

Spirituality and Aging Such voiced grief—in anticipation, on the lips of YHWH, and in the wake of loss—enacted the painful process of relinquishment. The task of death is to let go of what is finished, dead, and failed … Such voiced grief is an alternative to violence. Such grief, moreover, turns loss to energy for newness. (83)

What Brueggemann advocates for the community is equally true for the individual spirit. The person who is starkly conscious of her aging must find a way to mourn her losses. Each of us has developed over a lifetime ways of grieving, and this passage may be one in which all our courage must be brought to bear. It is hard work. Maybe the deepest call of the church for those in the older generation is to learn from the God of All Comfort to weep with those who weep but not in despair, to mourn and to trust God for ourselves in the company of others, “so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (I Thessalonians 4:13 NRSV).

So many names, so many aspects of God, remain to be explored with the ample time that many have in later years—in Hagar’s God of Seeing, in the Wisdom that is from above, or in the Pope’s latest publication, God’s Name is Mercy, for example.

For myself, I am drawn again and again to the God of Grace—threaded through all the Confessions contained in our Presbyterian Book of them. Yet so often Grace is foreign to ordinary discourse and ways of being in the world and in the church itself. Our aging provides opportunity for the elders to explore and to practice what living in Grace—trusting it, offering it, and receiving it—might mean to their own hearts and to the world that God loves. As a pastor and professor I was witness to countless expressions of Grace—given and received—by faithful ones in their aging years. I have seen a woman, outliving all her best friends of the same age, continue to companion a young man in a shelter with AIDS, not only offering him presence, but listening deeply to his story and grief, and letting herself be softened in the process. A man in a local neighborhood reaches out in conversation to the young ones and takes responsibility for the general welfare of trash cans, speed bumps, and neighborhood watch. An elder, now confined to home, takes on the privilege of prayer for the congregation, its pastors, and lay leaders, while welcoming the visits from those who bring communion. All are bearers and recipients of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is often as Grace is incarnated with people we encounter that we learn that we are forgiven and can learn to forgive, that we can let go of things to which we have clung to make room for the Holy One’s new thing, that we can experience an intimation of the promise of God that we will never be abandoned or forsaken ultimately, that the God of Hope continually makes things new. Anne Lamott says, “I do not understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

The practice of spirituality in those who are aging is for us elders and for our caregivers a tender process in which we respect and cherish what has gone before and look ahead to the ongoing gifts of Grace in our lives. “’Twas Grace that brought me safe this far, and Grace will lead me home.”

(“Amazing Grace,” John Newton)

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v

Dance Steps Toward Spiritual Maturity Tammy Wiens

A

s a Christian educator and pastor, one of my vocational charges is to nurture spiritual growth for all ages and stages of life. To nurture spiritual growth in children and adolescents, we often align our pedagogical strategies with theories of human development drawn from social scientists such as Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget. These theories prompt expectations for spiritual growth that align fairly predictably with the development of other human capacities—mental, physical, and pyschosocial. In spite of the fact that theories of human development carry forward across the life-span, Christian education is more attuned to these developmental stages in the spiritual nurture of children and adolescents than is typically the case when it comes to pedagogical approaches for nurturing spirituality in the second half of life. How might attention to models of human development guide approaches to Christian education that invite adults into a deepening awareness of God’s presence and action throughout the course of their entire lives?

In this essay I will consider three different perspectives on human development and suggest the contribution of each in mapping an educational approach for spirituality in the second half of life. I will first consider the work of James Fowler’s, The Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning alongside the psychosocial theory Erik Erikson’s life stages. Secondly, in contrast to the developmental theories of Fowler and Erikson, I consider the work of Maria Harris in The Dance of the Spirit: The Seven Steps of Women's Spirituality.

Ages and Stages James Fowler’s research links faith to stages of human development across the

Tammy Wiens serves as renewal pastor for Trinity Presbyterian Church,

in Butler, Pennsylvania. She holds the PhD in Christian education and congregational studies from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. She has developed adult education curricula and spiritual formation resources for the PC(USA) and currently contracts with the National Council of Churches as project manager for the Uniform Series Committee.

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Spirituality and Aging span of life. Fowler’s definition of faith strongly correlates to the theories of human development offered by Piaget and Erikson, but it links most strikingly to the moral development theory of his mentor, Lawrence Kohlberg. Fowler’s stages follow the models of these earlier theories in describing a progression of faith within each of the major developmental eras of the life cycle. “Faith,” for Fowler, is a universal quest that cuts across multiple traditions and is rooted in the question: “On what or whom do you set your heart?”1 Fowler argues that this quest goes beyond the domains of cognitive and moral reasoning and makes an effort to integrate cognitive elements of faith with social and relational elements. He does so, in part, by connecting the faith of individuals to the communities in which they live, and to the larger world on which each of us depends for our well-being. In this regard, personal faith is worked out through participation in a shared community of interpretation. While Fowler’s attention to these affective elements is noteworthy, growing in faith remains largely a rational enterprise.

In “Part II” of Stages of Faith, Fowler holds a fictional conversation with Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg, and it is in this section that the reader gets a better sense of how Fowler wants to understand faith development in relation to Erikson’s psychosocial crises and challenges. The stages of faith progress more fluidly for Fowler than is the case for the stages in Erikson’s model; adults who are at similar stages in their psychosocial development often present at differing stages in their faith development.

A Case Study Let’s imagine how the Erikson and Fowler stages play out in the lives of six session members serving the Westminster Church. The Westminster session is considering whether to attach their names to a presbytery letter lending support to a controversial issue before the General Assembly. The elders are at a similar stage in Erikson’s developmental model since they are all 50- to 70-years of age. The psychosocial task of this stage is “generativity versus stagnation.” The challenge of this life stage is to create or nurture a legacy that will outlast them. Erikson describes “generativity” as a need to create positive change in the world. Experiencing success at this stage results in feelings of usefulness and accomplishment. Defeat in this stage results in feelings of stagnation and a sense of meaninglessness. According to Fowler these elders may be at differing faith stages even though Erikson’s model places them in the same psychosocial stage. The implication being that each elder will construct the crisis of generativity in qualitatively different ways in terms of his or her faith.

For example, the adult who is in an early stage of faith development will work out the task of generativity versus stagnation “without benefit of a capacity for mutual interpersonal perspective taking” characteristic of Fowler’s later faith stages.2

If Fowler’s stages accurately portray our growth in faith, then effective teaching and exploration of theological themes should promote growth from one faith stage to the next. Herein lies the limitation of Fowler’s definition of faith for those who are persuaded that faith is not solely dependent on the acquisition of knowledge.

For example, noted educator and theologian Craig Dykstra critiques Fowler, stating: 20

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[I]n order to learn of God and a way of life that is an appropriate response to God we need something which we ourselves cannot provide . . . God must make what God is doing known to us somehow, and enable and empower us to participate with God in redemptive activity. At least to this extent, faith must be understood as a gift, rather than as an achievement or as the development of our own capacities and structures.3 Dykstra highlights the essential component absent from Fowler, namely, the agency of God. Growing in faith does often correlate to human psychosocial and cognitive development, but what is the impact of God’s grace in blessing us beyond our human capacities?

The Dance of the Spirit A number of features set Maria Harris’s Dance of the Spirit apart from Fowler’s Stages of Faith. Fowler’s work grows out of empirical research and formally documented interviews, whereas the “seven steps of spirituality” are borne out of Harris’s years as a teacher and her conversations about spirituality with colleagues and students.

Her model is uniquely feminine and passionately attuned to women, but its application extends beyond gender. Dance of the Spirit advocates for a spirituality that listens to and include the voices of lay-people, teachers, artists, and thinkers who are reflecting on faith from perspectives other than a white, male, Western mind-set.

Another qualitative distinction is that Fowler focuses on “faith,” while Harris prefers to talk in terms of “spirituality.” While at times her definition of spirituality seems ambiguous, Harris hopes to create in us a richer understanding of spirituality than we have previously known. Whatever spirituality might be, it is “at least this: Our way of being in the world: surrounded, held, cherished, touched by, and bathed in the light of the Mystery of God.”4 Another feature that sets Harris apart from Erikson and Fowler is her contention that spirituality cannot be measured in terms of developmental stages. In particular she critiques Fowler because his stages force a hierarchical and linear approach to faith that is too dependent on Piaget and Kohlberg. One of the weaknesses Harris sees in a linear model of faith development is that it presupposes a fixed outcome. For Harris, faith should be an artistic process in which “the outcome, the endpoint, is not known.”5 Rather than build a structure for spiritual growth that moves up and through a predictable series of stages, Harris proposes a rhythmic series of steps, movements, attitudes, and practices.

Unlike the steps of a ladder or a staircase, Harris envisions spirituality “as steps in a dance, where there is movement backward and forward, turn and return, bending and bowing, circling and spiraling, and no need to finish or move on to the next step, except in our own good time, and God’s. At whatever step we find ourselves, we are where we are meant to be.”6 She is more concerned with process than product.

The seven steps of the spiritual dance include: Awakening, Dis-Covering, Creating, Dwelling, Nourishing, Traditioning, and Transforming. When I envision 21

Spirituality and Aging her seven steps I see a labyrinth because the path of the labyrinth represents the inward and outward movements of the dance steps Harris describes. She says the first three dance steps (Awakening, Dis-Covering, and Creating) move toward the “center,” while the final three steps (Nourishing, Traditioning, and Transforming) have an impulse away from the center. Dwelling is the “centerpoint of spirituality.”7 I envision Dwelling at the center of the labyrinth to represents Harris’s description of this dance step as a place of rest. It is step for prayer and meditation. Furthermore, the image of the labyrinth is consistent with Harris’s intent to create a non-linear model. Movement out of the labyrinth does not imply that the “dance” is complete. There is always the possibility of entering into the labyrinth and practicing the steps again and again.

It is not within the scope of this essay to describe each of the dance steps or detail the spiritual practices Harris proposes in connection with each step. It is important, however, to highlight that Harris describes spiritual practices that are both personal and communal. What’s more, it is our attentiveness to the agency of God that is “the undersong of every discipline.”8 Every step of the dance is an acknowledgment that “we did not create ourselves and we are not in control of the universe.”9

There is one dance step, that of “Traditioning,” that deserves further mention, because it most strongly correlates with the developmental models of Erikson and Fowler in terms of providing pedagogical tools to nurture spirituality in the second half of life. Traditioning is the spiritual practice of “handing on spirituality and the good we have learned to dance in our lives to the next generation.”10

Convergence Erikson, Fowler, and Harris offer three different angles of vision that enrich our understanding of the second half of life. Eriksons’s angle of vision sheds light on the psychosocial crises that confront older adults. For Erikson, the psychosocial task that older adults must address is how best to make a lasting contribution to the world. Fowler’s angle of vision stretches the human capacity for faith and meaning-making. Fowler’s hope for those who appreciate the inevitability that their lives are more than half over is a stage of faith in which they are “ready to spend and be spent for the cause of conserving and cultivating the possibility of others’ generating identity and meaning.”11 Harris offers an artistic, almost mystical, angle of vision in which she invites the human spirit to dance with God’s spirit. For Harris, the dance step of Traditioning is the spiritual practice of passing on our wisdom to others, otherwise our lives will continue to feel unfinished and incomplete.

The point of convergence for all three angles of vision resides in an enlarged sense of who “I am” in relationship to God and the whole of God’s creation. Whether we are talking about Erikson’s generativity, or Fowler’s stage of conjunctive faith, or Harris’s step of Traditioning, the second half of life is a season in which human beings are compelled to look beyond their personal achievements and accomplishments in order to more fervently invest in making the world a better 22

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place. In Christian terms, the second half of life awakens a deeper connection to one’s participation in the Body of Christ.

The essential task for Christian educators and other church leaders who share responsibility for nurturing spirituality in the second half of life is to map a vision of participation in a community that extends beyond the self. We need to encourage older adults to look beyond even their own families or their own congregations. Spirituality in the second half of life requires a vision of contributing and connecting to the whole human community of Jesus Christ all around the globe. The second half of life will find its depth and beauty only when people find meaningful relationships within the whole people of God. Regardless of whether adults have the emotional or cognitive maturity of later developmental stages, there is still hope for spiritual vitality accounting to the grace of God. This is where the dance of the spirit and the fluid steps of Maria Harris’s approach to Christian education become so essential. Church leaders need not despair if there are people in their congregations who seem stuck in or stymied by the earlier stages of human development, because grace infuses the community as a whole so that the stronger members compensate for the weaker members (Romans 15:12). Grace allows that adults in the second half of life can enjoy an ever-deepening intimacy with God even as they struggle to grow and mature in other facets of their human development. Maria Harris illuminates the importance of offering freedom to people in the second half of life who are in need of grace. Freedom from a pre-defined path of spiritual maturity. Freedom to create their own path.

Freedom to dance. v NOTES

1. James Fowler. Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1981), 14.

2. Ibid., 107.

3. Craig Dykstra, “What is Faith?” in Dykstra and Park, eds. Faith Development and Fowler (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1986), 57.

4. Maria Harris, Dance of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Women’s Spirituality (New York: Bantam, 1991) 67.

5. Ibid., 121.

6. Ibid., xii.

7. Ibid., 87.

8. Ibid., 133.

9. Ibid., 134.

10. Ibid., 146.

11. Fowler, 198.

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Spirituality and Aging

Why Aging and Spirituality Deserve the Attention of Religious Educators Beverly Johnson-Miller

B

y now most of us are well aware of the aging state of society. People are living longer, and by 2030 the number of people over the age of 65 in the United States alone will exceed 72 million, 20% of the population. The 85+ population is the fastest growing age group with a growth rate four times that of the total population. The world's population of 65+ increases every month by 800,000, and the 605 million 65+ in 2000 is expected to be close to 2 billion by 2050. In 2006, 30% of the people in the average congregation were age 60+. Ten thousand boomers turn 65 every day, and this generation of older adults is “healthier, more mobile, more educated, more skilled, and more outspoken than any previous generation of Americans.”1

Boomers will live longer, having lifestyle needs and expectations that are very different from previous generations. The staggering impact of aging boomers is altering the face of aging and society. Religious communities prepared to respond to our aging society will be most likely to thrive. The possibilities and challenges of this aging revolution call for fresh vision, skilled leadership, and creative engagement within and between congregations and community organizations.

To associate aging congregations with failure or demise is a serious mistake.

The aging process, and older adults themselves, are not to blame for decline in religious communities. Many faith traditions affirm old age as a privilege and honor with divine purpose. They recognize that older adults embody the wisdom, counsel, moral responsibility, spiritual strength, and prophetic voice needed to repair the world. One third of older adults volunteer on a regular basis, and if someone joins a congregation at age 65, they have on average twenty good years to contribute.

Beverly Johnson-Miller

is professor of transformative education and aging at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore Kentucky. In response to the aging revolution in the church and society, she developed a certificate program in Older Adult Ministry and an MA degree program in Aging and Spirituality at Asbury.

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Johnson-Miller

To underestimate, underutilize, and undervalue the presence of older adults undermines the values and mission of our faith communities and the common good.

True failure would be for religious leaders and congregations to focus on younger generations at the expense or neglect of our elders.

Faith development intersects with aging and spirituality. James Hillman (1999) asserts that aging is not an accident. To the contrary, aging is the process through which character is forged, illusions are confronted, and the capacity for spiritual life is maximized.2 Spiritual-religious growth corresponds with human aging. The way we understand and live out our faith changes, and should change, as we age. Religion and spirituality help us age by providing, among other things, perspective and purpose for life. At the same time however, aging enlarges our capacity for spiritual life. This does not mean that everyone embraces, or lives into, the possibilities in each season.

Carl Jung (1930)3 claimed that most people are dreadfully unaware of the developmental tasks of the second half of life: “As a consequence many of us meet our death as only half-developed individuals, exhibiting signs of depression, despair, fear of death, and disgust with ourselves and others, together with a feeling that life has been uncompleted or wasted.”4 Richard Rohr (2011) challenged the notion of being stuck in old age with the existential and psychosocial tasks and significance of earlier years.5 While “the first half of life is discovering the script … the second half is actually writing it and owning it” (xi). Many, and perhaps most, “people and institutions remain stymied in the preoccupations of the first half of life” (vii). Both culture and religious communities have invested heavily and perhaps primarily in first-half-of-life issues and often at the expense of influencing people toward higher levels of consciousness and development.

In the words of Kathleen Fischer (1998), “[W]e cannot really understand any stage of our life journey unless we can penetrate the mystery of its final stage.”6 Although spirituality is intrinsic to all aspects and seasons of life, understanding the distinctive nature, role, and tasks of older adult spirituality provides insight and guidance for growing and navigating the spiritual journey throughout life.

Jane Thibault (1996) described aging as a natural monastery; a season marked by solitude and simplicity.7 Lars Tornstam (2005) introduced the concept of “gerotransendence”; a vision of older adult spirituality characterized by redefinition of self and relationships, new feelings of cosmic communion, a desire for positive solitude, and a decreased interest in material things.8 Joan Erikson (1997) claimed the transcendent quality and process of redefining reality in late life as the ninth and final stage of psychosocial development.9 The significance of spirituality in aging cannot be overstated. Numerous medical and mental health studies validate the primary importance of the spiritual dimension. Studies demonstrate a positive relationship between religion and physical health and recovery from illness.10 Spiritual reminiscence has been found to enhance meaning in life with dementia patients.11 Older adult meaning, purpose, ego integrity, resilience in the face of suffering, health, recovery, positive aging, and longevity are clearly tied to spirituality and participation in 25

Spirituality and Aging religious communities.12

While writing the conclusion to their life stories, older adults come face-to-face with the spiritual tasks of life review, living in the present, rediscovering God, embracing the love of God, and acceptance of dying and death. Each of these tasks entails weaving personal and divine stories. Sacred texts serve as a mirror and guide for interpreting the story of one’s life.13 The weaving moves us toward integration and acceptance of one’s life story by increasing consciousness of mortality, inviting life assessment, and enlarging our capacity for spiritual life and meaning. The spiritual tasks of aging bring “together the joyful and the sad, with clarity and mystery, into a harmonious acceptance of life before God.”14

Violence toward older adults in the forms of ageism and elder abuse reflects a spiritual vacuum in our society. The discrimination and oppression of ageism expressed in attitudes, actions, or institutional structures call for congregations to examine themselves, build awareness, and facilitate intergenerational engagement and education. Faith communities serve as the largest source of social support for older adults outside of family, yet little attention has been given to the role of clergy and faith communities in addressing elder abuse, whether physical, psychological, financial, sexual, or through neglect.

The challenges and possibilities at the intersection of religious faith, spirituality, human development, and aging provide vital cause for religious education.

The realities of our aging congregations and society cannot be ignored. Boomers are changing the face of aging with new needs and expectations and potential longevity. Religious communities that creatively engage these realities open doors for advancing personal and social transformation. Bringing attention to the realm of aging and spirituality certainly aligns with the values and vision of religious educators and the Religious Education Association.

Suggested goals for researchers and practitioners in religious education include: • Expand understanding of the significance of faith and spirituality in the aging process; • Discern the multi-faceted issues and related implications of our aging population; • Expand understanding of the purpose, nature, and potential of elderhood; • Identify various models, approaches, and community resources for faith and flourishing; and, • Develop creative ways to counter violence toward aging and older adults. v Notes

1. Maren Niemeier, “The Boomers Have Arrived: Preparing to Meet the Needs of our Aging Population.” Interview with Leonard Kaye, Health Workforce News (2012, July 19). Retrieved from https:// ruralhealth.und.edu/projects/hwic/health-workforce-news.

2. James Hillman, The Force of Character: And The Lasting Life (New York: Random House, 1999).

3. Carl Jung, “The stages of life” in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, vol. 8 (2nd ed., 1969).

(Princeton: Princeton University Press), 398, 399, 406-407.

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Johnson-Miller

4. Lars Tornstam, quoting Jung in Gerotranscendence: A Developmental Theory of Positive Aging (New York: Springer Pub. Co., 2005), 38.

5. Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), xi

6. Kathleen Fischer, Winter Grace: Spirituality and Aging (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1998), 1.

7. Jane Thibault, “Aging as a Natural Monastery,” Aging & Spirituality: Newsletter of ASA’s Forum on Religion, Spirituality & Aging, 8(3), (1996), 5.

8. Tornstam, 3-4.

9. Eric Erikson & Joan Erikson, The Life Cycle Completed (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).

10. Harold G. Koenig, Douglas M. Lawson, & Malcolm McConnell, Faith In The Future: Healthcare, Aging, and the Role of Religion (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2004).

11. E. MacKinlay & C. Trevitt, “Living in aged care: Using spiritual reminiscence to enhance meaning in life for those with dementia,” International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 19(6), 394-401.

12. Alicia M. Stinson, Spiritual life review with older adults: Finding meaning in late life development (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4778/.

13. David A. Hogue, Remembering The Future, Imagining The Past: Story, Ritual, and The Human Brain (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009).

14. Adrian L. Van Kaam, Ber van Croonenburg, and Susan Annette Muto, The Emergent Self (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Dimension Books, 1968).

Aging Continued from page 10

5. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.18.4. Available in many places on the Internet, including www.newadvent.org/summa/.

6. Cf. John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. Available in many places on the Internet, including http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/perfection.html

7. Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society; Second Edition Revised and Enlarged (College Edition), 2nd ed. (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1963) for extended descriptions of the stages. Joan Erikson in the book The Life Cycle Completed (Extended Version) (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998) argues for a ninth stage in which the previous eight stages are experienced in reverse.

8. Carl Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, in Collected Works, vol. 7, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), paragraphs 398— 99.

9. Paul Tournier, The Seasons of Life, (Eugene, Or.: Wipf and Stock, 1963), 57.

10. Francis Kelly Nemeck and Marie Theresa Coombs, The Spiritual Journey: Critical Thresholds and Stages of Adult Spiritual Genesis (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1987), 101-4.

Please support the publication of Insights by making a gift online: AustinSeminary.edu/donate or by returning your gift in the enclosed envelope.

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Pastors’ Panel We asked religious leaders to reflect on aging and congregational life. Here is what they told us.

How are the aging involved in the life of your congregations?

The Reverend Leanne Thompson, co-pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Willmar, Minnesota They are our congregation. We have a wonderful mix of old and young, with active ministries for children and families. However, the retired members of our congregation do most of the work of being the church. They show up early and stay late.

They donate much of their “free time� to carry out the day-to-day tasks, serve on committees, sew quilts for neighborhood children, help prepare mailings, beautify the building, and assume post-retirement jobs such as clerk of session, financial secretary, or head chef for the meals we serve to college students. The aging members of our congregation model what faithful stewardship in action looks like for the younger generations.

The Reverend Carlos Wilton, pastor, Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and Stated Clerk of Monmouth Presbytery We are living through a phenomenon unprecedented in human history: average lifespans nearly twice as long as they were a few generations ago. Not only does that mean there are many more aging people in our congregations, but those we do have tend to be much older than previous pastors could have imagined. Our most senior members are not only octogenarians but centenarians. Health permitting, some of our volunteers continue to actively serve into their nineties.

The Reverend James Lee, pastor, New Covenant Fellowship, Austin, Texas We have honorably retired pastors preaching and teaching. One of our retired pastors was instrumental in our establishing a covenant relationship with churches in Chiapas, Mexico. One of our aging members even served communion on her walker chair so that she could bless others without burdening her body.

I am grateful for two of our musicians who have chosen to help our church through piano and guitar. One of our aging members uses her skills to edit our materials. Another, an accomplished writer herself, started a publishing company so that she could encourage people to write and publish.

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Pastors’ Panel What, in your experience, characterizes the spiritual life of the aging?

Carlos Wilton It’s now a truism that there are multiple stages of retirement: young-old, old, and old-old. The spiritual issues are different for each phase. There are also vast individual differences that vary according to life-circumstances. If there are health problems, there is grief for lost mobility and vitality. We’re just beginning to discern what effect Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia have on a person’s spiritual life. Far more research is needed in this area. Some of our older members are involved in a second round of parenting, as primary or secondary caregivers for grandchildren, a state of affairs few anticipated that can lead to anger and resentment.

James Lee For one of our members, it was being asked to serve as an elder. She didn’t want to take the place of younger leaders, but I reminded her that we needed her. She utilized her sphere of influence to ensure that we have a Presbyterian women’s organization at the church and that the women had a platform for studying Horizons and fostering conversation.

Even in singing contemporary songs, we have had several of our aging adults join with our small praise team. The genre and lyrics were not what they enjoyed, but the experience fed them. We found ways to ensure that we sang traditional hymns and provided notes and lyrics on PowerPoint and hymnals in the pews. Several of our aging adults led in securing new Glory to God hymnals. For one of our members, our weekly communion was an affirmation of her belonging. She loved sharing her praises and prayers during that portion of the worship service.

Leanne Thompson To borrow terminology suggested by one of our sages, the spiritual life of the aging is characterized by accommodation. Some of those accommodations are celebrations, as retirement opens up opportunities to travel, spend more time with family, or indulge in favorite hobbies. But some of the accommodations of aging are a source of grief and crisis of faith, particularly when one is accommodating to the loss of ability. Illness and injury often force accommodations to lifestyle and home.

Medical conditions demand a slowing of the pace of life or the loss of freedom, such as the ability to drive. My heart breaks for our elders who feel that they no longer have a purpose and are left out of the life of the church family. But this time of accommodation can also be freeing. As more than a few have commented to me: “I am ready to let it be someone else’s turn!”

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Spirituality and Aging What are the attitudes toward aging that you see in your congregation?

James Lee The aging in our congregation are respected and free to participate as much as they like. We are learning how to advocate on their behalf. As more of our middle-aged adults are becoming a part of the sandwich generation, caring for their parents and children, we are aware of the lack of resources available. We also partner in ministry with Genesis Presbyterian Church. The fellowship hall is available for a group of retired and aging individuals who want to pursue lifelong learning classes. Genesis has a greater ministry for the aging adults, which adds value to our community.

Carlos Wilton The increasing average age of our congregation means aging people are well-accepted and valued for who they are. We recognize milestone wedding anniversaries each year. It used to be that a 50th anniversary was notable; now, it’s run-of-themill. We’ve celebrated several 70th anniversaries in recent years and one 75th. Of course, for each older couple there are many more older singles, some of them living on their own for dozens of years. Unless they have family in the area or have sought out alternative family structures, isolation and loneliness can be problems.

Leanne Thompson Our aging members are cherished by our congregation, and they are an inspiration.

There is an intentional commitment to erasing the barriers that keep the most aged from being connected to the church. As needs are identified, members are quick to respond, providing volunteer valet parking, installing automatic door openers, delivering sermon CDs and manuscripts, arranging for rides, assisting with delivering communion, and caring for members during crisis. Our deacons have made caring for the aging their priority, delivering birthday flowers, sending cards, and making sure all of our aging members receive regular visits. But the best example I can give of our congregation’s attitude toward the aging is the inter-generational event that happens every spring—the “Senior Prom.” It is a fund raiser for our youth, and the “seniors” (adults of the church) purchase tickets to attend the banquet and dance hosted by the youth of our church. The youth go all-out, picking a theme and a menu, decorating, and choosing the music for the prom. They dress in uniform (black and white) to serve the appetizers and wait on tables. The “seniors” turn out in their finest; some even pull out vintage gowns. By the end of the evening all ages are dancing and laughing together. The church is at its best when the young and old alike have something to offer and can celebrate life together.

What resources for the aging does your church or community lack?

Carlos Wilton Our central New Jersey church is near an area where there are large numbers of over-55 retirement communities. That means there is a proliferation of govern30

Pastors’ Panel mental and nonprofit agencies providing transportation, nutrition, socialization, and targeted social services. Our church is involved with several of these, contributing volunteers. We’re also a community in recovery from Hurricane Sandy. Many older adults who were flooded out of their homes lacked the coping skills to persist through a long recovery and have found it difficult to navigate the maze of government procedures and regulations. Some have simply walked away from beloved homes, taking big financial losses.

Leanne Thompson Our community has a reputation for having very good resources for the aging. Many people from surrounding communities retire here because it is a regional center with medical care and services as well as opportunities for recreation and enrichment. However, as need increases and resources decrease it is getting more difficult to meet the needs of the aging in our community. Transportation has become a problem as local transportation services have decreased their hours and taken away weekend service. In the last year, we have had members of our congregation move into care facilities in outlying communities for rehab, long-term care, and memory care because there were no beds available in Willmar. This removes people from their supportive relationships and from their faith community that loves, cares for, and supports them. One of the major care providers in our community is undergoing a major capital expansion, but even this is not projected to meet the long-term needs of the community because of the limitations the state places on how many beds they are allowed to have. More creativity is required of the church as we seek to fill these gaps and advocate for services in our community.

James Lee As a missional church, we do not have the resources. We have been blessed to have older adults with strong retirements and family support; however, there’s nothing more humbling than to lose your physical and mental capacity and at the same time have to deplete all of your resources in order to get additional care. Some are encouraged to go into assisted living facilities; however, that can cost up to $4000 a month.

When families aren’t able to provide care outside of their home, it is difficult.

Even with family members supporting these individuals, they cannot be present 24-7 and keep their jobs, balance their family life, and maintain their sanity.

Currently we have a hospice chaplain in our congregation who provides information and encouragement to families whose loved ones may be in need of hospice care. Recently we reached out to the Presbyterian Foundation to help us learn more about end-of-life decisions and how to help protect our aging members’ resources so that they can live out their lives with honor and dignity. We all have more work to do. v

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Required Reading Books recommended by Austin Seminary faculty The Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire: Reading Revelation with a Postcolonial Womanist Hermeneutics of Ambiveilance, Shannell T. Smith

very things that may ‘offend’ or ‘threaten the dignity’ of others?” (2) Smith answers these questions by using exegesis to frame a hermeneutic discussion. Her exegesis is solid, as will be evident. But this is not, primarily, a book about exegesis. Smith’s work aims to provide an answer for her questions. To do so, she must engage in constructive biblical hermeneutics.

Smith’s first chapter begins by introducing womanist and postcolonial hermeneutics. At the beginning of chapter one, Smith introduces womanist theologians. She then considers postcolonial thought. Next, Smith turns to her hermeneutical neologism, “ambiveilence.” Both W.E.B. Dubois’s “veil” of double-consciousness and Homi Bhaba’s post-colonial “ambivalence” shape this hermeneutic. Dubois’s metaphor describes the “two-ness” of being both “an American, a Negro” (57). Such “double-consciousness” inhibits self-consciousness for African Americans. Toni Morrison’s assertion that the veil may be self-protective complicates Smith’s argument. One could use the veil to shield oneself from unacknowledged social locations. Smith argues that both can be true. The veil could be imposed and/or self-imposed. In either case, the “veil” inhibits self-consciousness.

To Dubois’s veil, Smith adds Bhaba’s postcolonial concept of colonial ambivalence (64). She rejects “the binary of the colonial relationship,” (i.e. colonizer vs. colonized). Instead, she posits that complicity and resistance co-exist “in every colonized subject” (64). For Smith, this ambivalence applies also to biblical texts.

A hermeneutical frame of ambivalence moves her “past the impasse whereby one part of the biblical text appears to be purely anti-imperialistic literature, and the other … reflects empire” (66).

Smith’s resulting hermeneutic of “ambiveilence” includes but exceeds both Dubois and Bhaba. First, it includes a gendered analysis which privileges African American women’s experience.

Second, it is intentionally activist,

Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014, 192 pages, $49 (paper). Reviewed

by Margaret Aymer, associate professor of New Testament, Austin Seminary.

W

here you stand affects what you see. This is the basis for many contextualized biblical hermeneutics. Feminist, womanist, and postcolonial hermeneutics all “stand” in different places, asking different question.

Scholars rarely bring these questions together in one argument. Shanell Smith’s monograph models how combining these three hermeneutics creates new insights into the Revelation to John.

Smith analyzes the woman Babylon depicted in Rev. 17-18. Her work exposes an interpretative lacuna: the privileged African American woman. Such a person reads from a location of privilege and oppression simultaneously. She is at once embedded in and a victim of empire. In response, Smith proposes the neologism ambiveilence as a disruptive, self-interrogatory hermeneutic. Using this hermeneutic, she reads woman Babylon as both slave and empire. Further, she reads herself, her privileged African American female location. Her reading raises questions of solidarity and self-awareness, privilege and oppression. She argues that oppressed and oppressor can live within the same body.

Smith begins by raising questions haunting to Christian readers of the Bible. “[W]hat happens when the text reflects back to aspects of your identity with which you either have not come to terms or refuse to embrace? … How can you read the Bible ‘with caution and resistance’ when what you read implicates you in the

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Required Reading oppression” (104). Smith’s ambiveilance suggests a more nuanced reading. She insists that “John does not present a minority report in the full sense, but rather a masculinist one” (104). A full minority report would not reinscribe imperial and patriarchal misogyny.

Chapter three lays out, briefly, Smith’s perspective on the Sitz-im-Leben of Revelation to John. For those familiar with scholarship around Revelation, much will be familiar here. One may be forgiven for skimming through it.

The chapter demonstrates that Smith’s work takes seriously contemporary scholarship concerning Revelation.

Further, it serves as background for the exegetical work of chapter four.

Smith’s fourth chapter represents her reading of Revelation 17 and 18. Here, she takes on John’s “masculinist minority report” (131). John clearly presents a critique of imperial power. However he presents that critique “in feminine flesh.

John’s detailed and vivid destruction of the woman Babylon (17:6), includes humiliation via the exposure of her naked body, the feasting on her flesh while she still has breath, and the burning up of whatever of her remains” (131). In this, Smith agrees with Pippin’s assessment.

Smith goes on to argue persuasively that the woman Babylon is a brothel slave.

She attends to πορνή, the word written on Babylon’s forehead. This she reads as “a mark of ownership” within the context of Revelation (131). For Smith, Babylon’s tattoo marks her as a slave, a brothel slave. Here Smith differs from other interpreters. Others have treated Babylon as if she were a ἑταῖρα, a courtesan. The difference is control over one’s own body.

The pornē was forced have sex; the hetaira had more freedom of choice. Smith takes great care in outlining the implications of Babylon’s slave status. She is “under the control of two pimps”—the beast and John of Patmos (142). Both exploit her body to their own ends, John robing and disrobing her as he pleases (149). Further, her fancy dress should be understood as one of the “tricks of the trade” (1467). Finally, Smith points out that John

rather than simply theoretical. With Dubois, “ambiveilence” recognizes the veil of “double-consciousness.” However, “ambiveilence” insists upon lifting that veil, for the sake of self-consciousness. On one side of the veil sits the imperial privilege of the global north. Counterpositionally sits the gendered, racial, and class oppression of African American women.

Here also one hears Bhaba’s colonial ambivalence. Reading from a place of ambiveilance requires interrogation of self and biblical texts. It requires examining the reinscription of empire in texts. It also requires reading in light of African American women’s experiences. Such a reading necessarily resists misogynistic voices, even those in the minority.

Smith aims, unapologetically, at liberation and transformation. “A hermeneutics of ambiveilance helps to highlight the ways in which one’s own ‘historical [and contemporary] experience of subjectivity’ or one’s aiding and abetting in the subjectivity of others may be reflected in the text” (69). She intends this hermeneutic to “lead the interpreter to engage in honest selfreflection, with the goals of coming to a fuller understanding of the self, and the desire to help others prevail over their oppressive conditions” (69).

In chapter two, Smith engages “scholarly conversations” about the “Great Whore.” She begins by engaging the feminist conversation. Here, she highlights the work of Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza and Tina Pippin. These represent the “dichotomy … in the ‘Great Whore debate’… that [Smith] seek[s] to dismantle” (90). Should Babylon be read as an imperial, oppressive city, as posited

by Schussler-Fiorenza? Or should she be read as a victimized woman, as Pippin would argue? Smith’s hermeneutic of ambiveilance, and her autobiographical reflection, argue for both truths (91).

Smith continues by engaging African American interpretations of the “Great Whore.” These argue, to different degrees, that Revelation represents a “minority report” (104). John of Patmos “writes in the interest of marginalized people against

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Spirituality and Aging may dismiss that as not really “exegetical.”

Yet, even the most “objective” historical criticism has always already been personal and interpersonal. Unlike these, Smith owns and names what is at stake for her.

The ambiveilent interpreter must engage in a self-conscious rending of the veil. She must name the ambivalences that these ancient texts expose in her. She must take seriously the ways in which (hashtag) black women’s lives matter within the interpretative enterprise. And she must do so for “the well-being of all people” (184).

Smith’s work presents a helpful, nuanced interpretative lens. Her ambiveilent hermeneutic resists the “eitheror”-ness of earlier discourses. It exposes the veil occluding the paradox many wish to resist. A text, and an interpreter of texts, can both liberate and oppress simultaneously. This applies to more than one veil. Smith’s work challenges any attempt to make texts or interpreters univocal. This would have been true even had Smith not engaged womanist thought. But she does engage womanist thought as part of her hermeneutic. As she does, she exposes yet another veil.

Smith wrestles, perhaps more than her predecessors, with the ambiveilence of privilege. This project represents not only a new interpretative proposal. It represents Smith’s own coming to self-consciousness about her veil. Smith realizes that her African American women’s experience is not unilateral. She too can be both victim of and participant in empire. Finally a gentle warning: Smith’s clear and poetic prose is intentionally activist. Self-consciousness is only part of her project. She means to expose her readers also. Smith’s argument holds up an “unclouded mirror” to her audience. Her work challenges us. What is your veil? How does the text read you?

And what do you need to rend for “the well-being of all people” (184)? v

attributes words to her that she never actually says. This practice “is another way of abusing her and concomitantly enforcing her silence” (148). Smith in no way negates that Babylon represents the oppressive power of Rome. Ambiveilence requires that she attends to the woman Babylon as both victim and oppressor.

Toward the end of chapter four, Smith engages the womanist aspect of her hermeneutic. She intentionally reads slave woman Babylon in light of African American women’s experience. There are two sides to this veil. On the first, woman Babylon is a victim of empire (154-67). She draws parallels between Babylon and African American enslaved women. They both experienced the abuse of their bodies. They both lived with a lack of physical control over their bodies.

They both experience danger and death from the marking of their skin. On the other side of the veil, woman Babylon is a participant in empire (167-71). Here, the experiences of privileged African American women attend. Smith self-interrogates here. She speaks of her own participation in privilege as an African American woman of the global north. The end of the chapter completes the act of “rending the veil.” Smith advocates for that selfconsciousness that the veil inhibits. She must “come face to face in … an unclouded mirror” (174). Self-consciousness dictates that she must acknowledge herself as a victim of, and participant in, empire.

Smith concludes with further thoughts about the implications of ambiveilence for the interpreter. Her hermeneutic “necessitates … not only a critical investigation of a text, but also, and more importantly, a willingness to be read and exposed by the text” (181). Here she moves into waters that make historical critics uncomfortable. The work Smith proposes is not merely “interpretative business; it is personal and interpersonal” (184). Some

Coming in the fall issue: Professor Margaret Aymer on The New Testament God of Migration 34

Christianity & the Arts

We Pass Through Waters on the Way

By Paul Hooker

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.

– Isaiah 43:2

We pass through waters on the way from mother’s womb to Father’s font, and learn to swim the channels of our birth as children part human, part divine, who not at home in either region, wander, rise through realms of wonder and delight, knowing nothing more than pain and pleasure, and wordless revel in the grace of play.

We pass through waters on the way, in blue green pools in summer’s withering heat and learn to plunge the fearsome deeper end, lie supine and weightless at the bottom, a little death, and breathless, cool and deep, rest ’til burning urgency compels a resurrection, rise through parting water, reclaim the shimmering surface of the day.

We pass through waters on the way past shaded woodland creek or breaking wave and learn to marvel and perhaps to envy life’s greening, shining other world with charms that lie beyond our puny reach; when we by sleight of hand dare raise them, they sing to us a song we cannot hear, speak to us with words we cannot say.

We pass through waters on the way through storm and swollen rivers’ murky flood and learn to mourn and then to start again, to stagger under loss’s grievous burden 35

Spirituality and Aging bewildered, benighted, and alone and still to rise and even cherish what the howling wind and waters give us no less than what they pitiless wrench away.

We pass through waters on the way to time’s eternal river at the end, and learn to gauge the ceaseless tugging current drawing us insistently downstream toward a place we do not, cannot know, down from rising land whence rivers run, to the cold embrace of river gods, who nameless lift us, carry us away.

But at the final moment, for a heartbeat, shall we not stand on Jordan’s nearer shore and learn this last, this most enduring lesson?

The water is not barrier but bearer through this life of wonder, an angel’s dream.

Pain and pleasure, love’s loss, heaven’s heartache, what are they but rising tide to buoy us, ’til we, at last rejoicing, drift away?

Paul Hooker is associate dean for ministerial formation and advanced studies at Austin Seminary. An ordained Presbyterian teaching elder, he is the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles (Westminster Bible Companion Series) and has extensive experience in writing and interpreting the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Read more of his poetry and meditations on his blog: pkhookerblog.wordpress.com 36

Theodore J. Wardlaw, President

Board of Trustees G. Archer Frierson II, Chair James Allison Whitney Bodman Janice Bryant (MDiv’01, DMin’11) Claudia D. Carroll Elizabeth Christian Joseph J. Clifford Katherine B. Cummings (MDiv’05) Thomas Christian Currie Consuelo Donahue (MDiv’96) Jackson Farrow Jr. Beth Blanton Flowers, MD Jesús Juan González (MDiv’92) John Hartman Ann Herlin (MDiv’01) Rhashell D. Hunter Steve LeBlanc

James H. Lee (MDiv’00) Sue B. McCoy Matthew Miller (MDiv’03) Lyndon L. Olson Jr. B. W. Payne David Peeples Jeffrey Kyle Richard Conrad Rocha Lana Russell Lita Simpson Anne Vickery Stevenson Martha Crawley Tracey Karl Brian Travis Carlton Wilde Jr. Elizabeth Currie Williams Michael G. Wright

Trustees Emeriti Stephen A. Matthews, Max Sherman, Louis H. Zbinden Jr.

Spring 2016

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