Edited
by: Elizabeth MacKinlay, James W. Ellor, and Stephen Pickard
(Binghamton: Haworth Pastoral Press) [Co-published simultaneously as
Journal of Religious Gerontology Volume 12, Numbers 3/4,
2001]
This is a collection of papers
related to the topic of the title. And as one often finds in such a
work, some papers are more enjoyable than others. It is in two
sections.
Section 1: Ethical,
Theological and Ethical Dimensions
There are 5 papers in this
section. The first looks specifically at ethical issues. It is very
dense and was not my favourite. The other 4 were much more readable
and accessible. In particular I liked the fourth, a paper co-written
by a philosopher and a theologian discussing what wholeness means in
relation to ageing – particularly in a culture where frailty and
failing health tend to contradict understandings of wholeness. The
third essay was also a very interesting read. It dissected a section
of 2 Corinthians as a way of discussion “outward decay and inward
renewal. The one issue I had with it was that there was relatively
little overt discussion of ageing...which seemed odd given the topic
of the book. The second paper challenged us to create a new way of
looking at aging and gerontology, pointing out that much of the
current work is based on biology and medicine and therefore misses
some of the less tangible pieces of the puzzle.
Section 2: Issues of Ageing
and Pastoral Care
This section has 7 papers.
These tend to be a bit more practical in nature than the first
section. They address issues as varied as isolation to sexuality to
ritual to spiritual development to parish nursing. There are two
authors who have submitted 2 papers each in this section. One talks
about a dialogue between faith and dementia followed by a discussion
of the importance of ritual in the life of faith. The other is a
series of two articles relating to spiritual development and ageing
(though it appears that these two are in the wrong order). I found
both these sets of papers quite useful, though in terms of practical
use the first set were more helpful. The last article, dealing with
parish nursing (or as termed in this book “Faith Care Nursing”)
reminded me of discussions in the United Church about 20 years ago.
It struck me as an intriguing idea then bu one that would be harder
to sell in financial terms. Still on the whole these papers have
planted some seeds about how a faith community can provide optimal
support for an ageing population – and in the process provide more
support for all generations.
One of the gifts that faith
communities have to offer to life is that we are one of the few
places in society that are truly intergenerational. There are few
places where people can share the energy and wisdom of multiple life
stages. If we do it well we will all benefit.
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