"Diminishment" is a terrible word to use to descrie older adults.

'The winter season of our prayer life is a mixture of blessing and diminishment that also describes the winter season of our life.' Those are words from the Retreat Director I heard just this morning.

This prayerful woman has been leading a group of almost 50 Sisters in a retreat whose theme has been "The Seasons of Our Life". Of course I cringed when I heard her use that "D" word. It was another instance of how all of us are exposed to the prejudices of ageism, how we internalize them, absorb them absent any evaluation, and in cases like this, further propagate these internalized prejudices to other victims.

What pained me most in hearing that "D" word used as allegedly describing later life was for my other Sisters gathered there, all of us clearly in the second half of life. At a subconscious level, at least, taking such words in without evaluating them results in a sense of "being less"; it may also generate unexamined feelings of shame for being "diminished", for being old.

The GOOD NEWS, the whole truth about the aging process is waiting to be preached!  The solid data from the fields of gerontology and of the psychology of aging MUST be used as the grounding for a spirituality for all of us in the second half or second third of life. This grounding is the only approach that will provide a spirituality of aging that holds integrity.

Without a marriage of sound gerontological and psychological data with a paired grounding  in  Scripture, we are left with messages about aging and spirituality that, at their worst, are harmful to our self-concept of our future selves  (and therefore harmful to our well-being along several dimensions), and, at best, offer only pious piffle.

Where is that person who is going to preach the GOOD NEWS, that is, the WHOLE TRUTH to my sisters?

About the 'Yikes' in a Previous Post

In my last post, I stated that I had been asked to be assessed for the right to hold and use my driver's license solely because I had reached a certain chronological age. I responded with "YIKES!"

Many of my peers don't react visibly that way. For whatever reason. Here is why I did.

Let me share the following story told to me by a Latina woman.  She grew up in El Paso, Texas in the 1950's. Each year on the first day of school, the Mexican children – only the Mexican children – were taken from the classroom to have their heads checked for lice.

Let that settle in.

Racism blatant enough to cause an audible gasp. How could such a thing happen?  It doesn't happen today because, thank God, society is sensitized to the prejudice of judging others on the sole basis of ethnicity.

School officials in El Paso did not set out to ostracize or alienate their Mexican students, I feel sure. They were seeking the common good. The presence of head lice is a public health issue and the schools have a responsibility to ensure a safe, healthy environment.  The way they attempted to ensure this common good, however, was racist, based, quite obviously, on the premise that lice infestation is more likely among Mexicans. Epidemiology tells us such assumptions are patently false. So to act in the way these school officials did, was simply racist.

The laudable goal of assuring a healthy environment should be sought. It just has to be done in a way that is not racist, in a way that does not denigrate any class of persons because of their ethnicity.

The connection with requiring a driving test on based on age?  I hope it is obvious. To make assumptions about anything, or to demand certain procedures to be followed, based solely on chronological age is ageist.

Do we want to keep drivers and all those whom they might encounter when they are behind the wheel safe?  Of course we all do. We just have to do it in a way that is not ageist. Can we do that? Of course we can! When there is an awareness of how vicious and self-harming ageism is to all of us, we will look for another way.

I hope it is soon.

"Don't Say 'Still'"

I just blurted it out.  It wasn't angry or belligerent; it was just an instinctive and immediate response delivered with certitude and confidence.  The setting: a representative of an insurance company testing my 75+ year-old cognitive skills prior to a driving test required for me to keep my driver's license.  That aspect of my story is for another day. Let me just say here that the required test had nothing to do with my perfect driving record. It was purely age-based. YIKES!

This personable woman was giving me the results of a simple cognitive test and explained that my score meant I could still --- and I interrupted her right there. "Don't say 'still'. When you use that word it implies that I surpass expectations for a certain capability expected for someone my chronological age."  The examiner responded very positively, saying she had never thought of that meaning in use of the word "still" and she clearly caught my meaning immediately. She went on to say that she was presenting a training for employees of an adult day care center that evening at a local site her employer insured. The topic was customer service and she would use this new knowledge with her class.

When I found a geriatrician here in the St. Louis area soon after my relocation here, she asked me three questions on my first visit:

1. Have you fallen within the last six months?  Good question. Persons over the age of 65 are at risk for serious consequence when a fall is sustained.

2. Do you live independently at home? Good question. It gives some general indication of the level of my physical/cognitive functions.

3.  Do you still drive?  OH NO! My geriatrician flunked on that question.  Still?  The implication is that someone of my chronological age may surely have lost the complex interplay of skills that driving requires.

Not to be repetitious, but we use the word "still" when we are describing something seen as beyond the time line society determines.  If you smile when you see this picture below, you get it. Bring it to your level of consciousness when dealing with what society has told all of us about aging and older adults.

For the most part, what we absorb from our culture about what aging is and what to expect as a result of the aging process is so false and so detrimental to each one of us.  It's way past time to start learning the real facts about aging and life in our later years!  In fact, the more you know the whole story about aging, the better aging looks!