Reflections on the 6th International
Conference on Ageing and Spirituality
I
recently attended this conference which I found inspiring and affirming. It was a wonderful opportunity to follow up
the previous conference which FiOP organised with Methodist Homes and the
Centre for Theology and Public Issues, Edinburgh University. The conference, held over four days, was rich
and varied and the participants were very friendly and committed to spiritual
care and older people bringing a variety of perspectives from different
countries.
Maureen O’Neill
November 2015
The following is a reflection from Professor Susan McFadden who we were
privileged to have as our Malcolm Goldsmith Lecturer in 2013. I hope you get a flavour of our discussions
and activities.
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| Susan McFadden |
Most of us have attended many
conferences, but as the years pass, I think we will recall the gathering in Los
Angeles in October of 2015 as formative and transformative. Personally, I
feel deeply grateful for time spent with dear long-time friends and people I
met for the first time here, all of whom I hope to remain connected to through
the coming years. A small conference like this affords such a rare
opportunity for meaningful learning and the renewal and formation of
relationships that can profoundly affect our lives.
As Keith Albans said in our first
plenary session, talking about spirituality brings something enlarging and
enriching to our consideration of aging. A theme resounding throughout
the conference first appeared in Keith's address: consideration of
spirituality and aging points us to powers and strengths that can flourish in
the context of biological aging which, as many speakers noted, is primarily a
portrait of loss and decline toward death.
However, despite the narcissistic
insults and painful burdens of biological aging, so many older adults' lives
are animated by creative engagement with the world that enables them not just
to cope, but to flourish and find meaning and purpose that motivates them to
keep going in the face of multiple challenges. We saw that quite clearly
in Liz MacKinlay's talk about the work of Viktor Frankl and his influence on
the leadership Mel Kimble provided to the effort to move religiousness and
spirituality onto the agenda of gerontology.
It has been only in the last few
years that gerontology has begun to pay attention to the resilience of older
adults and to observe that for many people it is undergirded by spiritual
practices and religious beliefs. Unfortunately, however, as we saw in
several of the presentations, faith communities often fail to see this.
As Keith Albans said, faith communities may not notice the "unspectacular
discipleship" of older people that is a clear reflection of their
resilience.
Nevertheless, when we look closely,
and listen carefully, we begin to appreciate the narratives-the
stories-expressing late life resilience. Jane Thibault's tales of
pilgrimage, and the way she constructed the dynamics of the transformations
that accompany pilgrimage, clearly demonstrated this to us.
When we reflect on this conference
and its meanings to us-personal meanings, and relational meanings-I hope that
we will frame it in terms of the way the conference was titled: Paradox
and Promise in the Pilgrimage of Aging. I don't think the organizing
committee intentionally set out to be so alliterative, but these are three
powerful words: paradox, promise, and pilgrimage. As Jane said,
seeing aging as a pilgrimage invites us to embrace all the experiences of the
journey: the ones full of hopeful promise as well as the ones that force
us to engage with the paradoxes of gain and loss, frailty and strength, love of
life and readiness for death. As Liz MacKinlay reminded us with a quote
from Frankl, it is the "defiant power of the human spirit" that
enables us to set out on this pilgrimage, endure its hardships, and embrace the
hope and promise of its outcome.
Rebecca Giselbrecht's translation and
presentation of Ralph Kunz's paper gave us more images of paradox and promise,
arguing that both become clearer as we age. Put most starkly, this paper
stated that aging forces us to place the promise of maturity in the shadow of
mortality. How can we flourish in the face of all this, especially given
our tremendous anxiety about dementia? Our Swiss friends suggested that
we need to be suspicious of any promises about aging that ignore paradox, and
that we need a spiritual context for grasping that at the core of our finite,
fragile existence, something whole shines through.
There is light shining through the
darkness.
Dayle Friedman gave us many images of
light and darkness when she spoke of how old age invariably presents us with
shattering experiences: experiences of loss, change, disillusionment, and
frailty. But, out of the shattering there can be redemptive repair and
rebirth. I don't know if any of you noted that both Dayle and Jane
employed the metaphor of shattering. Jane told her own personal story of
shattering, but paradoxically, pointed toward wholeness obtained through the
meaning derived from, as she said, dignifying the shock, sinking so as to
rise. Here again is the paradox: promise arises from peril.
Mary Catherine Bateson reinforced the
power of metaphor in our efforts to live and grow together. Her master
metaphor-about composing a life-fits well with our theme, for after the
shattering, after the peril, we receive the gift of composing our lives which,
as Mary Catherine said, is a deeply spiritual process, infused with wonder and
light.
Pulling all of this together, we can
see a number of themes woven into our plenary sessions, workshops, and the
conversations we had with one another. We best apprehend the complexities
of aging through story and the use of metaphors that help us grasp the promises
and paradoxes of the pilgrimage. Some of the most powerful metaphors
surging through our time together have been expressions of shattering and light
emerging from darkness.
Now I want evoke a concrete image I
hope you take from this conference: music! I've been to many
conferences, but never have I participated in one in which two musicians were
appointed as bards to lead us in singing. Music has been a key component
of our time together. In addition to the musical gifts bestowed by Bob
Atchley and Judith-Kate Friedman, remember how Keith sang a song at the very
beginning of our time together when the technology was balky? Do you
remember how Judith-Kate led us in the Wendell Berry song that begins,
"And when I rise"? When was the last time you sang so much at a
conference?
Finally, I'd like to quote from a
song we didn't sing, but I think it expresses our themes of shattering and
light. It comes from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem."
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
I
want to express thanks and gratitude for all the hours and effort and
creativity Conference Host and Director Nancy Gordon dedicated to organizing
this amazing experience we've all shared. Thank you, Nancy!
